


The Fixer

by Squiddly



Category: Captain America (Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Divorce, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Military, Nursing, PTSD, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2379104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squiddly/pseuds/Squiddly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Buchanan Barnes, formerly known as the Winter Soldier, finds himself wandering from state to state mindlessly searching for Hydra operatives who escaped S.H.I.E.L.D.. But, when he finally finds a lead, he learns that there is far more to this network of sociopaths than meets the eye. With the help of a nurse with an identity crisis, Bucky finds that not all Hydra agents are made the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Self-Centered, Lying, Cheating Bastard

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! I've just started writing this story, and I wanted to write it from the reader's POV. But, I couldn't progress the plot the way I wanted to as a reader-insert so my character now has a name and a personality. I don't like all of these "save the girl" plots everyone writes about Bucky. I think it's time that someone posts a story about a girl with a brain and some sense instead of letting some crazy person break into their house and instantly sleeping with them.

One band of the window shades sat off of its track. It was raised just enough to look inside without being detected. It was a hot, muggy night out here in the country. Fighter jet engines boomed overhead high through the clouds, echoing long and loud across the flat land. It was the first time in who knows how long that Bucky had seen the stars so bright. It was hard to remember how many there really were. Out here it was dark enough to see the Milky Way clearly. Unlike the endless lights of D.C. and New York City.

The Winter Soldier, or, James "Bucky" Barnes, as he preferred to be called, had been traveling for months. Eleven months, actually, as he trekked across the country, searching.

Memories from his life trickled in slowly, like an icy cold finger on the back of his neck reminding him that there was still so much missing. It came as a painful shock when he stated feeling things again. It hurt because he didn’t understand what was happening. The first time he felt 'upset' was when he saw Steve fall into dark water below that falling hover craft. But after that, after reading anything he could find on that name, Bucky, it started coming back.

It started so slowly, then, all at once.

It happened three weeks ago while he was sitting on a train through Charlestown, Virginia. It reminded him of another time, on another train. When his best friend saved his life by busting up a bay door and knocking his attacker around like a ten cent hooker. The pain that followed the memory really shocked him. Guilt covered him like a heavy clay cast wherever he went. That feeling was what prompted him to do what he did.

Although he knew he was widely behind the times, he was beginning to understand the purpose of computers. He managed to get a copy of the list. How he came across it wasn't of consequence, and not nearly as important as what it contained. A list of Hydra members trained by S.H.E.I.L.D. That soft, folded sheet of paper is what brought him here to begin with.

The only sign of life for two miles on either side was the dim light emitting from this little white house. Inside, a woman sat on a beige leather couch watching a strange, flat, flashing screen, looking like a zombie from the old pictures. Her mouth hung open slightly, a white plate of charred meat sat half eaten on her plate. A large black dog stared at the plate like it was all that mattered in life. The animal eased closer, gaining the woman's attention. She scowled at it before placing her hand under it's jaw, bringing it's glossy wet nose to hers.

"Leave my burger alone you annoying little nugget." She feigned anger, then kissed the black nose. She looked at the dog for another minute before shaking her head slowly. Cutting the black patty with a fork she let the dog snatch it from her fork before running away with its prize. "Pete is gonna kill me when he gets back. I spoil you."

Bucky was waiting for a sign of some kind. Proof that the person he searched for really resided here, that it wasn't a false identity to throw people off. He thought about just breaking in, killing her and her dog, and tearing the place apart until he found what he needed. That's what he would have done back when… Bucky squeezed his eyes shut at the thought, pressing the memory back into some dark crevice. The last thing he needed was to draw even more attention to himself. So many people were already hunting him, it didn't make sense to raise any unnecessary red flags.

This was the address belonging to the name on the sheet folded in his pocket. The full list of traitor was released shortly after... something. It was hard to remember. Everything was still hazy from time to time, fading in and out. One day he'd remember every moment clearly as crystal. The next, he'd be a wild man with no purpose. He was a living anachronism. Certain things made perfect sense while others were frighteningly confusing. Like paying $3.50 for a coffee.

"Hey handsome! What's up?" A light voice floated through the window with a note of excitement. Bucky's eyes flicked back to the dimly scene in front of him. "Another month?" Her brow shifted irritably. "Oh. Okay. Yeah, I get it. No, I'm not mad I'm just- yeah. Okay, I'll make sure it gets sent out." The dog reappeared, sitting before the woman, awaiting a new piece of meat. "Go away you annoying little shi- Wha- no, not you, the dog. Jade is super needy today. She misses you. One sec my service is breaking up."

The woman held her phone out to look at the screen, sliding her fingertip across the screen and typing expertly. Her eyes widened a fraction as her expression suddenly sharpened and she threw the phone back to her ear. "Wanna explain why your phone says you're on base?" Even the stranger outside could hear the silent answer. The woman sat bolt straight, eyes wide, mouth agape with horrified realization. "-shut up! I don't want to hear it. Oh? Your phone is lying? What the Hell do you take me for? Now, I'm giving you one chance. Where are you, really. No more bullshit."

Bucky's dark eyes rolled. He didn't come here to learn about someone's personal problems. He didn't quite understand how a phone could identify someone's location, but he did pick up that it could be important information. So, he continued listening.

"-Uh-huh. Classified, sure. -Let me ask you this, are you high?" She stood abruptly, pushing her dog out of the way, pacing rapidly about the small room with one arm folded around her midsection to hold up a full length blue robe. "You are a crew chief for tankers, not some freaking secret squirrel, why would I believe for one sec-?" Her face dropped like a cannon ball. "Is that Shelby? Is that Shelby's voice?! So help me God of you're with her I will find you and..." Her voice hitched a sob and one hand flew to her lips. "What do you mean? It's not-" She eased back to the couch cushions. "Just, please, tell me where you are. It's been eight months. I've been waiting here for eight damn months. I've been to your office-" Silence. Furrowed brows. "Yes, is that a problem? No, I did not pick up your stupid CAC card." Dark pupils dilated, implying fear. "Why don't you have your CAC." More silence lingered for what felt like a long time. Her voice lowered almost inaudibly. "I see."

After thirty seconds, her hands drifted slowly to her lap, eyes transfixed on the opposite wall. The phone’s screen went black. Jade jumped up next to the woman, lowering her head to her lap. A mindless hand palpated the animal’s short fur quietly.

"Daddy isn't coming home, babe." She muttered quietly, brokenly. The dog whined, looking up at her master with large golden eyes. "He's too busy screwing some boomer in another country."

The man standing outside narrowed his eyes. She knew his location. This would be a synch. There were a number of options. One was to simply break in, and torture the information out of her. But that was the Winter Soldier's gig. Another, far more Bucky-ish plan, was to just knock on the front door.

The sad smile on her visibly paled face was promising when she pulled the screen door open. Fear and emotional upheaval made people vulnerable. It would be less than an hour before she gave away every bit of information he needed. Bucky lowered the brim of his hat to block his eyes, hoping she wouldn't recognize him from the news.

"What can I do for you?" She asked, voice tense. He got the feeling that she didn't want to see anyone right now, which made he the perfect target.

Blue eyes were barely visible under the shadow of night. The man at her front door was massive, taller and broader than her husband. The hand she held against the wall made her appear to be propping herself up when really she was clutching the butt of her loaded 40OT6. This wasn't the first time she had someone come to bother her at night. She tried calling the cops once but their only advice was to shoot the next one so they "wouldn't haveta deal with them hoodlums no more".

God she hated North Carolina.

The only reason she lived here was because of Pete's base assignment. Her stomach plummeted leaving a cold trail all the way down. It hadn't hit her how much her life revolved around his until the moment she hung up that phone. A sheepish laugh came from the doorway, it wrenched her back to reality.

“Sorry, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get back to the highway. Could you point me in the right direction?” The man at her door asked with a lopsided grin.

She appeared shocked with thin, elevated brows. "Oh! Uhm." She relaxed, leaning her shoulder to the door frame, lifting one hand loftily she pointed over his left shoulder. He pretended to glance wherever she pointed then looked back at her for further instruction.

"I know it's super dark, but if you take this road all the way to the end." She faltered, pursing her lips and rolling her eyes. "I know, it's just my driveway but you know what I mean.” She smiled lamely, shaking her head a little. “Make a right out of the driveway and take that road all the way to Old Grantham and make a left again. At the end of that, there will be a pretty confusing intersection. Make sure you stay to the right or you will be hopelessly lost forever." She pulled back the hand to move a bit of blonde hair behind her ear, looking up into his eyes to make sure what she said made sense.

Her lip suddenly quivered uncontrollably when she realized that she might only drive that route one more time with everything she owned to get the Hell out of here.

His lowered eyebrows fell even lower, focused on something on her face. "Are you okay?"

She went to nod before her lips and throat went taut, flaring her nostrils slightly to hold back the tears. "I'm good, sorry."

His head tilted, only a little, as his eyes searched her face. "You look hurt.”

She felt her weakened heart seize painfully. Yes, someone did hurt her. Her eyes remained steady on his, concern was written all over this stranger's face. Why was it that she couldn't even remember the last time Pete looked at her like that?

"Yeah, I'm okay. My husband is a lying, cheating piece of garbage." She forced a smile that didn't touch her eyes. She cleared her throat to indicate a change of subject. "Is that all you needed?"

The man’s expression was soft and a little embarrassed. "I hate to ask, but could you write those instructions for me? My memory isn't the greatest."

"Sure, just hold on a minute while I find a pen."

When she left the doorway, Jade took her place, tail wagging long and slow with bright eyes. Bucky scratched her head and the dog angled her head so he'd hit the right spot. The animal was pretty big, he was almost as tall as his hip.

The blonde woman returned, eyes puffy, with a pen in hand. She reached for his left hand. Instinctively he jerked away from the contact. The woman eyed him nervously. His eyes darted to the bushes next to the door as he explained quickly, "I'm an amputee. It's not real."

Her lips parted apologetically, but she couldn't seem to get the words out. Her cheeks burned red and she tried not to look at his hidden arm. "Sorry, I don't have any paper so I was gonna write it on your hand, but if your don't want me to it's okay. I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

"'S okay. Here," he took the pen from her hand with a wink and pulled out the list of names, folding and flipping it so she wouldn't see what was written. Using the door as a flat surface to write, he smiled, pen poised and ready. "So I follow this road to the end..."

* * *

The night air was brisk and dry for August in the south. It amazed the blonde that she was laughing at a time like this. It was like this guy dropped out of the sky specifically to make her feel better. They bantered back and forth about all kinds of things. Mostly about Jade and how she couldn't seem to get enough of the stranger’s pants. The dog was excited to be around someone other than just Katie for once. Her owner was laughingly mortified.

"I'm Bucky by the way." Bucky smiled winning at the woman as she recovered from a laughing fit.

"I'm Katie, it's really good to meet you." She shook her head slowly in disbelief, her words punctuated by short bursts of laughter. "I haven't laughed like this in too long."

"Because of the cheating, lying son of a bitch?" Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow. Katie grinned, but her eyes were hard and guarded. "I don't know where these military guys get off treating their wives like that.” He added truthfully. “They drag you all over creation then do something like that. It’s shameful."

The grin slipped from her face.

They were seated on two lawn chairs on the back porch where the sky was lit like a Christmas tree. Katie was staring intently at the sky. The corners of her lips tugged down, deep in thought. They had been shooting the breeze for hours. He wasn’t completely sure when he knocked on her door, but he suspected it was close to nine. Judging by the moon’s position, it was getting closer to four in the morning. He was surprised that she wasn’t tired yet. Her eyes weren’t drooping, and she wasn’t yawning. She had a very flat jaw and straight nose that made for a pretty profile even under such dim light.

Bucky tried not to think about her like that, but it was difficult. Katie was not just married. She was married to a man he had to kill. And to get to him, he had to change the topic. "Have you been stationed here long?"

That fixated gaze didn't move. "Yeah, three years. Before that, New York for four.

He whistled. "How long were you together?"

"Married since I was eighteen and stupid. Now, seven years later, I'm still a total idiot." Her lips tightened to a line, her chin crumpled slightly.

"You're not an idiot, he's the idiot." He couldn't stop himself from saying. It was in his nature to keep a woman from crying. Tears were confounding to him. Even when he was close to crying, himself, he would joke around until he forced a smile.

Katie's expression fell just enough to become totally vulnerable as she hummed in agreement. Bucky didn’t know how to make light of this particular situation so he pressed on with his subtle interrogation. "Did that idiot have the stones to tell you where he is?"

Her mouth opened, then closed. Her mind rolled. He could see her calculating something as her eyes stared into the endless sky. "He's screwing his coworker somewhere in the Middle East. He said Qatar, but then he said it was classified. Then, he said Cali. Then, just before I hung up on him, I heard his little whore say a flight number. I looked it up on my phone and it doesn't exist for any major airline." She shook her head violently, giggling manically. "Wow, I must sound totally crazy."

Crazy? No. But Bucky was definitely disappointed.

Peter A. Forscythe, a chemical engineer for Hydra, was in either California or Qatar. That was a massive expanse of space to search and Bucky didn't have the time.

Bucky jerked away from the "touch" that he felt to his left arm. He looked at Katie whose hand retreated and lingered in the air between them.

"Sorry, I forgot." Her eyes trailed the line of his long sleeved sweatshirt. "Does it hurt?" Her face shaded white. "Sorry, too personal. Wow, what's wrong with me today." 

Bucky felt his lips pull into a smile. No one had ever asked him that before. He never really thought about it. Yes, it did hurt. Like electric pressure that couldn't be released along the seam. It didn't hurt enough to bother him, but it was enough to get his attention. "Yeah, sometimes."

"Oh, that's terrible. I'm actually a psych nurse at a hospital in Raleigh. We used to work with a lot of amputees with PTSD." Bucky's eyes brow rose at the term. Her head angled sharply, if it was possible to turn your head sarcastically, she just did. "You _do_ know what PTSD is right?" He shrugged a little. Katie tried not to giggle but it didn't work. "It's post traumatic stress disorder. It's diagnosed in people who experienced something terrible, like rape victims and military veterans."

The term used to be called 'shell shock'. He remembered the distant look in his friends' eyes when they would come home, just before he joined the Army. Bucky also knew that he should be looking for a way to excuse himself and leave at this point. He knew it was the smart thing to do. But the longer he spoke with Katie, the more he wanted to just stay and listen to her talk. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t think he was a monster, someone who didn't want to see him captured and locked away. It was even better to talk to a pretty girl who didn’t like to watch the news.

From what he heard so far, he knew that she was once an officer in the Air Force, but she was given a medical discharge when she was diagnosed with a condition that she didn't divulge. She was married at eighteen and would be divorced before twenty-six. Her parents were wealthy CEO and CFO's of a pharmaceutical company and she had two brothers that she hadn’t seen in three years.

"So where were you headed before you ended up in this God forsaken place?" A smiling voice asked, pulling Bucky from his thoughts.

"Nowhere in particular, just somewhere to rest my head until morning." He said numbly as he watched the vast sky above.

Looking at the sad looking man who stared up at the stars, Katie's heart was torn. She wanted to ask him to stay. Even if it was selfish, she wanted to have someone to talk to. Someone to keep her mind off of reality, just for a little while. There were two extra bedrooms in the house, so he would have somewhere to sleep.

She fostered kids with Pete before, and how different was it to take in a full grown adult?

NO! That's totally insane. She just met this guy! He could be a psycho killer, or wanted by the mob, or something else.

But, he couldn’t be. He was the trifecta. No one was this hot, funny and fully sane. Usually you could only pick two of the three. This guy was what she considered ‘too good to be real’. There just had to be something wrong with him.

"What exactly do you do?" She asked tentatively, hoping it wouldn't come off as insulting.

"Retired Army." He lifted his left shoulder poignantly with a cockeyed smile that grew as her eyes widened. "I travel on disability checks."

There was a resounding pang of guilt that hit him in the gut when those green eyes widened ever so slightly. Guilt because he didn't want to lie. His mother always told him that lying was a sin, not that he grew up religious, but it felt wrong to take advantage of someone so defenseless. The lie was awful, too. Just because he was an amputee it didn’t make him disabled. He hated to call that luck, but in a lot of ways he was lucky. The worst part was how easily she believed every word.

"That's awful. Shouldn't the VA take care of you? It should be their obligation.” Katie’s face drooped. “It’s sick that they can just kick you to the side like that.”

Katie shook her head in heartfelt disbelief. Even though he wasn’t looking at her, he could feel her eyes on the side of his face. He could almost hear her thinking.

She was. She was thinking of all the times she refused to try something new because Pete told her not to. She was thinking of all the roller coasters she never rode and the SCUBA certification she never got. She was thinking of the time she wanted to go skydiving and he flat out told her "no" because he thought it was too dangerous. And now, watching Bucky, a war veteran with an amputation as he sat there peacefully watching the sky, she felt herself leaning toward "no" just because it was her first reaction to anything abnormal. She had military training, she knew how to handle a gun. If he turned out to be insane, she would kill him.

With the sound of her lying husband's voice still in her ear, she knew she needed to break the pattern of compliance.

"You know what? Screw it.” She said off-handedly. “I have two extra bedrooms if you need somewhere to go tonight. I'd hate for you to waste all that gas money to find some gross motel in Goldsboro at this time of night. This town isn't exactly the safest."

Bucky smiled. It was funny that she thought he needed _her_ protection when _she_ was the one married to a psychopath. It was a strangely welcomed change of pace.

"That would be great.” He heard himself say before he could really think about the consequences. “I'll pay you with tinfoil eggs and pancakes if you want." He wiggled an eyebrow. "My troops said they were the best they ever had."

Katie had to bite her lower lip with her front teeth to keep from laughing. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. This was just ridiculous. "You don't need to do that. Plus, you are just a shameless stand in for Jade's deadbeat dad."

"Ouch." Bucky hissed as he gently pulled at one of Jade’s long ears. All he could see were those gold eyes as she looked up at him adoringly.

Katie lifted her body from the chair and scratched the top of Jade’s head. "Come on, I'll show you around. Tonight’s rent is on me, but any longer and I'm charging."

Through the sliding glass of the back door they entered a dining room with a kitchen to the right. It had a jutting island that broke the room in half. Walking through the dining room there was an open wall that lead to a sizable living room with the tan couch from before. There was a flat screen TV in the corner and a large glass coffee table sat between them. To the left was a short hallway.

The room on the left was Katie's, she didn't even open the door for him to look inside as not to give any ideas. Across the hall from hers was a small, pale yellow room. Directly to the left was a room filled with a drum set and three guitars, a purple flower patterned chair, and a pull out couch. Katie informed him that she and her husband had a bunch of guests who would come to visit so they always needed enough beds.

Bucky chose the room across from hers. Not that he expected anything bad to happen, but if it did, he would be close enough to help. He was never a cheater, mainly because he never told any one girl that he was steady with them. But he assumed a guy might be mad that he was caught. If that guy showed up at some point, Bucky would become his worst nightmare.

It wasn't a _terrible_ idea.

This was his first lead since starting this journey a little under a year ago. If he could convince Katie to get her husband to the house he could force the other locations out of him. It wasn't a bad idea at all. Now he would just have to convince her to let him stick around for a little while longer.


	2. The Really, Stupid, Dumb Idea

There was a sound of ruffling in the other room. At first Katie assumed it was Jade looking for breakfast. That is, until she heard a low male voice telling Jade to "sit". She reached into the nightstand for her Glock 45 and charged it as quietly as possible as she crept down the hall. A wall of smell hit her before she could reach the kitchen.

Eggs? Waffles?

Ah, right. Bucky.

He was standing before the stove in the same clothes from the night before with his ball cap backwards to keep the dark hair from his tired eyes. He didn't even look at her before saying, "If someone's gonna shoot me it ought to be a pretty girl that does me in."

Katie blushed, remembering the loaded gun in her grip. She discharged the round and put it in the middle of the table before plopping down. Last night was slowly coming back to her. She remembered showing Bucky around before laying in bed and thinking hard on her life. There were so many things she'd been putting off for Pete. Like getting a new bed set and painting the kitchen whatever color she wanted. She loved that stupid, selfish man more than she wanted to. She always had. In the back of her mind she knew exactly how unhealthy it was to give up everything for a guy. But in some ways she felt all of that time wasn't wasted. Although her mind automatically swerved away from the word 'divorce' she knew it was probably inevitable. It wasn't the first time she caught him lying like this, and it wouldn't be the last. All she could think about were her friends, the ones she always gave advice to. The ones she always called stupid for staying with guys who didn't treat them right, yet here she was. Last night, as she stared at the ceiling, she imagined what would change. She wouldnt live here anymore, in the house she bought with him. She wouldnt be able to file her taxes with him anymore. There were so many major changes when it came to the "D" word that she was afraid to even think about the little things. Like, would she find his hairs around the house? Would she smell his cologne on the clothes hanging in their closet? 

It hurt to think about how much might change if she was brave enough to send him those papers. It was so painful that it almost felt like cheating having Bucky here. Making her a delicious smelling breakfast. 

"So, what's for breakfast Bobby Flay?" She asked her house guest with a big fake smile. He looked at her like she was insane. "What? You don't know Bobby? The sexy daytime TV chef that all the moms swoon about the world over?" Not even an inkling of recognition passed his face. "Wow. Where have you been for the past decade?" She asked sarcastically as she spun her gun as it balanced on its side.

Bucky focused on the gas stove. If only she knew where he'd been.

He slid a plate across the table. She caught it with her fingertips, eyeing its contents with her lips bunched in disgust. Two bundles of tin foil. She looked up at him for help and he laughed softly. 

"Eggs and pancakes: Army style."

Peeling one of the lumpy things open, the smell hit her again. The contents looked identical. Mushy, brown-ish, and shapeless. 

"Which is which?"

He slid into the seat across from hers. "The eggs are eggs, and the pancakes are pancakes." A blank expression met his. For the first time, potentially ever, he felt self-conscious about his lack of cooking skills. "Just eat it, it's not like I know the difference."

Katie obliged. He watched quietly as she hummed delightfully and rocked back and forth in a little dance of pure bliss.

"Damn boy, you make a mean breakfast. Even if your presentation could use some help."

After that, silence dropped like a heavy curtain. Only, unlike the night before, this silence felt tense. The 'get out of my house' conversation would surely follow.

Throughout the night, Bucky found himself waking up to new ways to convince Katie to let him stay. It felt wrong to feel that way. But he wasn’t sure he could find it in him to care. He didn’t want to hear her telling him to leave. Not until he could kill the Hydra bastard.

Katie played with the tin foil shell, stabbing it repeatedly with her fork.

He got a much better look at her this morning. She looked incredibly European, yet very obviously an American mutt like him. She had the straight, hard angles of a German but softer curves around the bulge of her high cheekbones of a Pol or Russian with small green eyes. Her hair was dyed blonde, nearly white, which he missed the night before. He knew this because the part of her hair closest to her scalp was far darker than the rest. He was unused to looking for dyed hair. People never used to do that. Now fake hair color was the thing girls did. It was baffling how much could change over 70 years. 

Katie hummed as Jade sat next to her, awaiting scraps. She smiled and swatted the dog's nose playfully. Her long tail wagged in slow strokes.

How could a man want to hurt this girl so badly? Bucky wondered how anyone could expect more from a woman. Katie was completely devoted to her husband; she waited for his return each time he went away without any expectations. Maybe it was the distance that made him stray. From where Bucky sat he couldn't finally a physical flaw that would drive a man away. Maybe it was something deeper.

Katie tried not to feel the electricity of his gaze over her face. It felt like he was searching for something. He was so busy that he hadn't noticed the many times she glanced up at him to remember his face.

Beneath two dark eyebrows he had deep set, soulful blue eyes that begged for her trust. Dark, chin length hair was pinned back from his eyes by a red and white baseball cap. He had significant stubble, almost a full beard, growing up his neck and over his jaw and chin. He looked like a man. Everything about him oozed with masculinity from the points of his broad shoulders to the way he appeared comfortable in every situation. He was confident that he belonged wherever he set his feet. She didn't want to think of him as handsome. She didn’t do it consciously. It felt so wrong to compare him to Pete. But she couldn't help it, Pete was the only man she ever knew thoroughly enough to notice these kinds of things. 

Where Pete was lean, Bucky was bulky. Pete was fully blooded Irish with dark red curls that he kept in a military buzz cut. Bucky's was longer, darker. Pete had freckles painted all over; Bucky had smooth, almost olive tinted skin. But she wouldn't think of him as handsome. Absolutely not. It was amoral, it was wrong it was... accurate.

The one thing she couldn't seem to get off her mind was how badly she wanted him to stay. But she couldn't. She met him by chance. Things like that never worked out like they did in movies and Nicholas Sparks books. He probably wanted to get back on the road anyway. She wrote herself a little speech in her head so it wouldn't seem so harsh when she asked him where he was going next.

"So," she rocked back in her chair keeping her words straight in her head so she wouldn't say something stupid. "Wanna stay?"

A hand flew to cover her mouth with an audible slap as she stared, horrified disbelief shone behind wide eyes. The chair clattered back to all four legs.

Bucky's eyebrows lifted in surprise. This was way easier than he thought.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm completely crazy. I'm just lonely and, ugh." She buried her face in her arms and flopped over the table, pushing the plate to the side with an elbow. "Ignore this idiot. I'll be here, dying of embarrassment."

"Asking a strange man to move in with you? What would your father say?" The laugh in Bucky's voice made Katie's chest squirm.

"It's the same as craigslist. Or foster care." She assured herself, as if this was a totally normal coping mechanism to ask a total stranger to move in after hearing her husband was a lying cheating bastard. What if Pete came home and Bucky was here? Would he think she had been cheating too? Would that screw up the divorce proceedings?

She could feel his eyes on the top of her head as she muttered into her arms. "The offer stands."

Now Bucky smiled fully. Were things really so different in this time that women had male roommates without the assumption being sex? He wasn't sure. 

"Oh, what the heck.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Sure."

The blonde mop jerked up and she looked at him, baffled. "For real?"

He looked about the place, then back to Katie, whose face was pure disbelief. "This place is way more fun than rail hopping anyway."

She smiled, exposing her teeth. Minus one snaggletooth on the left side, her top teeth were fairly straight. 

"Ridiculous requests aside, I do have to warn you. I have a ton of stuff I have to do on base today." Katie started, scratching some gunk off of the barrel of her handgun with the edge of her nail. "It isn't fun getting people on, so I'll probably just leave you here for a bit."

Bucky listened intently. If she left it would give him ample opportunity to turn the place upside down and search for her husband’s location then put everything back together before she returned. "Getting on base is a problem?"

"Oh yeah. Big time. They make every person take a picture and they run it through some database before they'll give you a pass..."

Well, that made up Bucky's mind fairly quickly. He wouldn't go to the base. If their security was that advanced he didn't have much of a chance to get on unnoticed. "Yeah, rain check."

Katie showed him where the different pans and dishes were supposed to go and left a few minutes later. Then the fun began.

 

 

The last thing Katie wanted to do right now was talk to a lawyer. She didn't want to divorce Pete. She loved him. Se loved him ever since she was sixteen. She loved him when he was away and she loved him when he was in bed next to her. She didn't understand what she did wrong. Did he fall out of love? Or maybe he just wasn't fulfilled with their relationship.

Whatever the reason, Katie now had to go have the base send him divorce papers and remove herself from his files. 

As she sat across from the civilian worker across the desk, Katie's mouth hung open, refusing to believe what it said on the computer screen.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry."

The pale face paled whiter under the light of the computer screen. "This is insane."

"That's what it says, sugar." The civilian woman wasn't terribly supportive.

According to his file, Pete PCSed* to a base in Germany over a year ago.

When he said he was working... Where was he really going? These "deployments" were all fake. According to this file, ever since they moved to North Carolina he was living in Germany. 

It was too much to comprehend.

So she did the most logical thing: she called Pete. The tone came for her to leave a message as she paced outside of the main office building. But she couldn't think of anything to say. She couldn't even cry. She was just so ... Angry. Her skin crawled. How was she so thoroughly fooled?

When she got home, before she even entered the house, she slid open the garage, pulled her bike off the wall and pedaled away. The endless clatter of her chain was soothingly, as was the sound of her breathing as it became deep and heavy. She went about three miles before turning around and going back home. She needed to hug her dog and vent to Bucky some more.

When she burst through the door, Bucky was on all fours in the middle of the floor playing with Jade by pushing her gently until the dog pounced and bit his hands.

It was nice to see someone else play with her for once. The poor thing hadn't seen Pete in months and before that she hadn't seen him in a year. Who knows where he'd been during that time. Katie decided not to think about it.

"What're you dorks doing?" She asked, tossing her keys and bag on the table with a metallic clatter.

Bucky just smiled and let Jade win by rolling onto his back where she lay across his chest and licked his face. "How’d it go?"

He watched the amused look in her eyes dull into frustration.

"Listen to this." She twisted the pamphlet of paper in her hand until it started to tear. Bucky rolled up into a sitting position before jumping to his full height.

She didn't want to stare, but she couldn't help it. This man was the apex of physical fitness. Exemplified by the skull-sized biceps that brushed her upper arm as he pulled out the chair next to hers. She followed the line of his arm with her eyes. His blues were betraying his actions. Though he appeared lofty and happy, they were too intense. They sent sinful shivers down her spine.

Katie fell into the seat and he leaned on the table to listen. "Well, turns out Pete wasn't just lying about his deployment." Bucky's body stilled. Thank God Katie didn’t notice as she uncrumpled the paper in her hands. "Apparently he's been living in Germany for three years.” She threw her hands in the air. “Can you believe that crap? Germany!" 

He could believe it. It made sense if he was Hydra. It didn't make sense to make her move to a new location when he left.

Katie shook her head slowly before propping her head up by cupping her hand over the side of her face. "According to the files, he never in-processed the base I’ve been going to for three years. He's always lived there." Her eyes grew distant. "What the hell is he up to..."

 

The days went quickly and soon it had been two weeks since Bucky showed up on Katie's doorstep.

"Where ya goin'?" Bucky asked, legs propped up over the arm of the couch, laying deeply in the cushions without taking his eyes off the TV. He took a sip of his Budweiser and glanced at the woman rushing about in the kitchen.

"I have to go to work."

Bucky choked on his beer. "You work?" His head swiveled so he could look out the window. "It's dark. Where are you going?"

Oh, God no. Was she a...

"The hospital. I told you, I'm a mental health nurse. I was taking time off after a patient bit me. Remember?"

He sunk deeper into the couch. He hated forgetting things. 

"Yeah." He muttered begrudgingly. 

Whether he liked to admit it or not, the idea of Katie leaving his proximity bothered him. If someone had seen him, where he was staying, she could be hurt. But that wasn't possible. But he knew he had nothing to worry about. She was constantly strapped. Whether it was a gun or a knife, she always had something. He once peeked in on her testing out the comfort of a coat with strategically placed pockets for weapons. He hated to imagine what caused her to become so paranoid. 

"I'm off, see you in the morning. Try to be extra quiet; I usually sleep from nine to two. Thanks for keeping the couch from floating away, I was starting to worry." She rolled her eyes with a half smile as she pulled her sling bag over her shoulder and locked the door.

Bucky flipped through some channels. It was amazing how much he learned about the world this way. A commercial came on flashing with flags. He sighed deeply. It was a commercial for Captain America's new toy. He and his best buddies in the whole world: the Avengers. Not Bucky Barnes. It didn't break his heart, but it certainly stung. It didn't feel right calling him his best friend these days. So much time had passed. They went through such different lives. He often wondered if Steve would turn him in to the police if he just showed up one day.

He doubted it. But it bothered him that it was even a possibility.

Bucky thought a lot more deeply than he used to. The future was constantly on his mind. It was never something he put much thought into during the war. He couldn't. He could only imagine what was happening in that very moment. He never realized how much it would come back to bite him.

At some point during the night he started scrolling through Katie's computer. He found papers that were dozens of pages long that contained words that he couldn't spell or pronounce. He found old photos of her as a child with big fat cheeks. There were hundreds of photos of Jade as a pup. Then came the thousands of her husband.

There were pictures from their wedding, her brother's engagement party, and dozens of vacations to tropical places Bucky had never seen before.

Then finally, he found something useful. A document that Katie scanned after she found out about her husband’s fake deployment. She had spent that whole morning showing him what a scanner did and why people use it for important papers. This particular page listed his former and current duty stations, along with a few of the locations he was deployed. They were all over the map. Germany, Thailand, Uganda, Austria, Argentina, and New York.

He was currently listed at Rammstein Air Base in Germany. How the hell was Bucky going to get there?

It wasn't until light was blaring across the glossy wood of the table that he realized what time it was. 7:00. 

Katie would be home soon, he had to at least pretend to sleep before he got back. So he closed up the computer and placed it back in it's spot on the black nightstand next to her bed. He smiled when he was it wasn't made, or matching. There was a blanket that used to be part of a set with two pillows that were bright colors and sheets that were a checkered pattern. It was like walking into a child's room. There was a picture frame upside down on her dresser. He knew better than to pick it up. It was her wedding photo. He remembered when she woke up in a ball of fury and started throwing every photograph she had of the Hydra operative. He pulled her out of her room by her wrists, forcing her to stomp backwards. Eventually she gave up the fight and simply slumped to the ground without shedding a single tear. Instead she rested against his shins breathing heavily as if she was preparing for another fit. But it didn't come. She hadn't lost it since then. They didn't talk about it. 

She also ignored the thick package of papers she received in the mail yesterday.

Bucky stared at the ceiling for a while, waiting to hear her tires crackling over the pavement.

He rubbed his eyes and stretched in bed. His prosthetic arm was not the most comfortable thing to sleep on. He rolled out of bed only to realize it was nearly noon. He scrambled to put on some clothes. He slid into the kitchen to find it empty. Everything was in check. The knives were in the knife block. Colored mixing bowls of different sizes fit into one another next to the stove. He looked through the blinds to check for her car. It was sitting in its spot. He checked her room. It was also empty, but her sheets were moved around and the computer was not sitting on the bed. 

He fed Jade and let her out. The sky was overcast, the air thick with heavy mist. It was always hot here. He could hear the distant crackle of tires of pavement. The screeching sound of the garage door told him she was back. Bucky met Katie at the side door. She pushed through, nearly hitting him, and pushed his chest away roughly before gripping his T-shirt tightly enough to pop a seam. Then, with a flustered look about her, she released just as rough and strode past.

"How was your morning?" Katie’s voice tight as she pulled her hair out of a tight bun that didn't want to unfurl. Her face was red with wet hair clinging desperately to her forehead.

Bucky stood in the doorway looking so confused with his long hair looking like he just rolled out of bed. 

She didn't know why she was taking this out on him. She was disgusted.

Disgusted by her job and the people who worked there. She was sick of working with these patients. It felt cruel to even think such a thing, but she had been groped and molested one too many times. The night shift at Cedar Creek Institute was known as "hell" by the staff. Every handsy, filthy, sexual predator seemed to take over the place. They used the darkness as a cover for their cruelty toward other inmates. For financial reasons, the hospital was used for both genders. They were separated by a single corridor. 

Last night she found a fifty eight year old man in an eighteen-year-old schizophrenic girl’s room. The man was “serving” seven years for pedophilia only because he managed to get a plea deal after he was diagnosed with some nominal mental condition. The girl was being held for observation before she could be charged with arson. Katie was the one who walked in on that foul man attacking her. And what did she get for restraining him before he could further damage that poor girl? Reprimanded. The institute was hoping to pretend that nothing happened so they wouldn’t have a lawsuit on their hands. Working in a mental ward was enough to make a person lose all of their marbles.

Katie went to nursing school to fix people, not to become a registered babysitter for people she couldn't help. She wanted to work with veterans and victims. Maybe that's why she was angry, perhaps not at Bucky himself, but the idea of him. Here was a man with a severe amputation, yet, he was perfectly normal. It went against everything she studied and experienced.

"How are you so... normal?"

Bucky was taken back by the question. 'Normal' wasn't a word he'd use for himself. She must have seen the confusion in his eyes because she didn't leave him with enough time to come up with an answer.

"Not to point out the obvious, but, you lost your damn arm. How is it that you can just go on without any crazy side effects?" His expression grew more guarded by the second as she continued berating him needlessly. "My patients are criminally insane. I have rape victims who can't go through the day without crying and war vets who dive under tables if someone starts to whistle. I mean this in the nicest way possible because your behavior kind of scares me." She closed her eyes and leaned her weight against the back of the couch, easily invading Bucky’s personal space. "What happened to you?"

Bucky felt cornered and he didn't like it at all. It felt like she backed him into a trap and wouldn't free him unless he answered. 

"It works best when I don't talk about it." He barked through gritted teeth.

Katie took an instinctual step back and immediately regretted it. The hurt in his eyes was too much. She stumbled her words. 

"I, oh jeez, I'm sorry." She looked everywhere but at those blue eyes that wanted to bore a hole in her skull. "It's just, I don't know, I just worry about you, I guess. I know how bad it can be when you hold it all in. That was, ugh. I shouldn't have said anything."

"I don't remember."

Green eyes jumped to his. "Hm?"

"I don't remember losing my arm. Just waking up behind enemy lines with this." He shrugged his left shoulder, his gaze was set somewhere behind her.

Her lips formed a small 'o', eyes swimming with unspoken apologies. She never worked with a former POW before. She didn't have the slightest idea what to say or how to help. So she did what any normal woman would and changed the subject.

"Want to watch some preseason hockey? I think the Devils are playing tonight..."

The rest of the night they spent on the couch, Bucky’s arm slung over the couch behind Katie's shoulders. Every once in a while he'd say something to make her laugh hard enough to fall against him. He, of course, made it his practice to make her laugh as much as humanly possible. Eventually, it was like she gave up trying to sit up on her own, knowing he'd make her fall over anyway. She just rocked her head against his shoulder, their bodies formed together. The game passed and Katie was furious that the Devils lost to the Rangers. Bucky teased her for loving a team from Jersey when NY was so obviously better. Too bad Katie was far more current with her knowledge of Stanley cup victories, so he had to let her win.

Then there was one moment. She was smiling at him, legs a jumble underneath her, one knee propped up over his lap. For just one blissful second he thought she might kiss him. Her eyes dropped briefly to his mouth then back to his eyes questioningly.

Only then did she find the need to tell him, "you have a poppyseed in your teeth."

Even though he was always better with women than Steve, he still had his moments.

After that, she fell asleep and Bucky watched college football. It was ten by the time Katie woke up and started getting ready for work. He felt her cool absence from his side. He frowned. He couldn't think that way about a married woman. It wasn't right. But as he watched her get ready he saw her apply some light makeup and tie her hair into that same tight bun.

"You have a date or somethin'?" He asked lightly, petting Jade who took her owner’s spot. There was a deafening silence to answer him. He swiveled to see her gazing off into the distance, totally lost in thought. "Hey, Kate?"

She snapped out of it with a start, tears welling in her eyes. She stumbled a little as she threw a few water bottles in her bag. She never answered.

Bucky got up and stood in her way as she frantically readied herself for another hellish night on the Hell shift. Bucky's large hands suddenly appeared on both shoulders, steadying and holding her in place as he waited for something.

"Kate, what's wrong?"

Right then it came out. "I'm scared." She whimpered.

The soft sparks of anger and disappointment danced across his face.

A fat tear escaped her tight eye. "The reason I was so upset this morning. Something bad happened to a young girl. It happens all the time in clinics like mine." She maneuvered her arm around his to wipe her cheek. "And there's nothing I can do to help."

Bucky didn't say anything. He wasn't going to push her to think about something if it scared her this much. Instead he coiled his arms around her shoulders and held her there. Slowly, her own arms snaked up his back, holding him tight as she breathed him in.

After a long pause they untangled from one another, Bucky smiled down at Katie who returned a slight smirk.

Nothing was said as she left until she muttered 'goodbye' as she locked the door.

The entire night shift was filled with confusing thoughts. He hugged her. But that didn't mean anything right? Friends hugged all the time and it was completely normal. But why did that feel so different? Maybe it was just because she hadn't been on the dating scene for a very long time that she was assuming something out of nothing.

"Forscythe!" Katie winced at her married name, reminding her that she shouldn't be thinking about Bucky at all. "Get over here. We've got a code white."

Katie groaned. 'Code white' could only mean one thing. Male fluid cleanup. Gross.


	3. Daunting Decisions And Shotguns

A month came and went. Katie could even feel herself giving off mixed signals to her new friend. He never flirted with her, not seriously; at least she didn't think he did. She would mentally lash herself when she pushed him playfully knowing full well that it was just an excuse to feel his skin, or hair, or big muscles. It wasn't fair because she was still wearing her wedding band.

It wasn't because she missed Pete. She was so angry with him she could only feel the dull thump in her heart when someone said her last name. 

She came in through the garage one day to find Bucky flipping through a stack of papers. He jerked away when she said hello as if she'd thrown off his train of thought. She came up behind him and hovered her head between his neck and shoulder to read what he was holding

"Are those...?" Katie gasped and jumped back. 

He turned his shoulders, letting his metal arm hang over the back of the chair, to look at her, expression fully serious. 

Katie shook her head emphatically before looking back to make sure it wasn't a nightmare. They were still there. Bucky had a page in his hand. Oh God.

"You have to." He commanded, holding a page out for her inspection. She took it as if it's edges were on fire.

Her divorce papers. The ones she received three weeks ago. She rolled the ring on her finger.

"Take that off, too."

Katie eyed him like her worst enemy and Bucky hated it. She looked like a cornered animal, looking every which way for a quick exit. 

Bucky stood then circled in behind her and drove her with a hand on each shoulder until he pushed her into his seat. She could feel his presence standing over her. She knew she should have done this ages ago. But it felt so final, she didn't have the heart. A pen was sitting next to her hand. By signing this Katie was letting go of almost a decade of love. A decade of giving up her life and her choices for one person. 

Quickly, like ripping off a bandage, she signed her legal name with his last name and took off the glittering diamond ring, slamming it over the signature. She shoved away from the table to go cry in her room, but instead fell into a heap when Bucky pulled her against him. She cried there, even when he lifted her like a feather and draped her over the couch. He sat on the perpendicular loveseat quietly.

"Why did he do this to me?" She choked. "I thought we here happy. I was happy." She shook her head slowly with her eyes closed. "Why did I ever marry him?"

"Because you thought he was honest." Bucky answered begrudgingly, scratching Jade's soft head who sat between the two.

"No. I knew what he was." 

Bucky's eyes widened at her statement. 

"I knew he was a liar. Did you know he cheated on me one week before the wedding?" She turned her vibrant green eyes on Bucky who looked utterly shocked. "Yeah, I found out from a mutual friend that he cheated on me for that skank Shelby. He gave me every excuse to leave and I didn't take the hint." Her voice quivered. "What's wrong with me?"

Bucky couldn't answer that. He preferred to think that her ex husband did something to force her to marry him. But that was so obviously unrealistic. Katie loved that man more than anything, and he tore that up and threw the bits in a fire. 

 

 

Now that the paperwork was filed, Katie felt free. She had her maiden name back within a month, which threw Bucky through a loop. Her name was Katie Estrada. She was half Spanish. And the best part was that she never had to hear the assholes name again.

On some Tuesday, the weather was becoming brisk. Bucky decided to set up some targets in the back yard and play with Katie's small ammunitions holding. 

 

 

"Oh hell no. I've been hunting since I was five. I'm a way better shot."

"I was in the Army."

"And I can shoot a duck in the eye from two hundred yards." Katie smirked and threw Bucky her 40OT6. "Let's see what you can do."

Although her aim was pretty good, it was nothing compared to the former assassin. But this didn't upset her. Instead she tired to stump him by making him hit harder and harder targets. 

"Get the eye of that tree." 

"No, the other tree."

"Get the squirrel on that oak."

Bucky raised his eye from the scope to get her attention before rolling his eyes. She laughed and squeezed his shoulder, right where his flesh and prostheses met. 

"Wait, try to get that thing."

Bucky raised his head fully to look around without the scope. 

She noticed his hesitance. "That, over... There." She wrapped herself over his shoulders, placing her head in the crook of his neck, extending one arm to show him exactly what she meant.

He fired instantly. The sound was one he'd heard dozens of times. Luckily Katie wasn't cursed with the hearing he had. 

"Must have been a deer or something. Looks like you scared it off though." She squinted her eyes to try and look more deeply into the thick forest surrounding her house.

She was so oblivious. She had no idea that someone was watching her.

He knew he needed to leave. He had to put his goal back on track. The only reason he stepped foot in this house was to catch a Hydra operative. But since he couldn't bring himself to do that, why was he still here? 

He watched Katie unload each gun and take them apart until they looked like they'd exploded across her kitchen table. She was so meticulous in her routines. If she used it, it was cleaned extensively afterward. It was that expert eye that wanted to keep things in perfect condition. She liked to fix and maintain. It was one of the things that made her attractive.

Another was the way her arms held him. She didn't try to baby his prosthetic. It was just another part of him. She didn't try to push him to talk about his past, she made that mistake once and she deeply regretted it. Even now when she came up behind him and hugged him, he could feel the energy between them. He could feel it in her breath through his T-shirt as she whispered "thank you" into his spine.

He looked at her from over his shoulder, she smirked up at him.

"Thank you for making me sign those dumb papers. You were right."

The way she would talk about her ex was the worst part about Katie. It was sparing, but when he did come up in conversation, Bucky could see that light in her eyes die a little bit. There was nothing he could do to fix that.

After he saw that man's sunglasses in the forest, he felt a coil begin to tighten in his chest. He had to get out of her life in a hurry. 

 

 

Katie came home from work to find Bucky. He looked like he was about to go somewhere. "Where ya going buddy?"

Bucky didn't answer. Instead he watched her quietly before letting his eyes fall away. Katie's heart fell from her eyes. She dropped her bag on the floor with the clank of keys. She strode up to him and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. He didn't move, he only watched as her mind spun like a butterfly caught in a jar. Her tense hand released, smoothing over the spot before hooking a few fingers over the edge of the fabric. He turned his eyes away. She looked damn near beautiful when she looked at him like that. Like she would stop at nothing to make him better.

Her cool hand slid up the side of his face, her thumb dipped into the soft underside of his eye, brushing a few lashes. Her hand pressed against his cheek, forcing him to look at her. He didn't see a question in her eyes this time. He didn't see it, because she wasn't asking. His heart sped up and throat went dry. Without his knowledge or consent, his larger hands collected her, easing her closer. 

He felt her soft, hot breaths dance over his lips as the very tip of her nose ran along the side of his own, ending when her lips pressed to his.

Bucky planned to push her away and go without another word. But instinct took over. Something deep inside that knew him better made him slide his hand up the back of her neck and pull her closer until he felt her hot tongue flick out to taste him. His eyes closed to savor the feeling before giving in.

Katie wasn't going to let him leave without a fight. Whether she knew it consciously or not, Bucky had become an important part of her life. All she ever knew was Pete. How could she have known he was the right one? How could she spend so much time with one man without ever knowing him?

Bucky was real. The feel of his lips against hers was anything but imaginary. Nor the way the edges of his fingernails dragged down her sensitive ribs. The sensation almost made her groan, but her mouth was too busy learning a thing or two from a far more experienced man. The tip of his tongue whispered over the edge of her upper lip, her knees nearly gave out. His lips left hers only to relish the corner of her mouth before moving to her chin and beginning a rough trail to her ear. His prosthetic hand held her jaw as he placed a kiss against the lobe of her ear, pressing his temple to hers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You know, when most people say they're going to work they actually stay there." Bucky mused as Katie rushed through the door at an unusually early time for the third time that week. He was painting the kitchen some ugly salmon color Katie decided she couldn't live without. It was strange. Ever since her very convincing kiss two weeks ago, she avoided his presence like his skin might kill her. She came in like a hurricane, tossing trough papers that were strewn about the kitchen counter and flipped through cabinets and drawers. 

"What're you lookin' for?" He asked, standing with a roller filled with paint that was beginning to create a small round pool at his feet.

Her expression was tight as she rifled through her things. 

"I can't find it. Crap." She ran to her bedroom where Bucky could hear her rolling open every crevice of her dresser. She flew back into the living room, she was staring at the ground so she didn't have a chance to stop before Bucky grabbed her shoulders and forced her to stand up straight. 

Deep blue eyes dashed over her expression before settling at her eyes. They held a question that needed answering but Katie couldn't think of anything but how badly she wanted him to stop touching her. She tried to shrug him off but he just gripped her more solidly.

"Kate." 

She dropped her eyes to the side, unable to look at him quite right.

"Answer me." His voice was low, inviting.

Her heart thumped once hard in her chest. She took a deep breath and made herself look at him. "The police came to the hospital today. That girl's parents are trying to press charges against the hospital for allowing their daughter to be victimized. They're trying to say that it's my fault that she was attacked." Her voice cracked a little, she swallowed to even out the sound. "I had a list of my patients from that night and now I can't find it." 

The way Bucky looked at her made her feel like what she said made sense. Everyone at work thought she was making up excuses. But not Bucky, never Bucky.

"Did you scan it to the computer?"

Her heart lurched. Yes! She twisted from his firm grip, probably creating a couple of bruises, and dove into her room to reboot her laptop. Yes! It was there! She was so excited that she bounced on her bed as she sent the page to the wireless printer in the other room. A heavy presence entered her room and she tried not to look at him.

Something felt so strange after she kissed him. Not in a bad way, but it was uncomfortable. She liked him way more than she should, especially right after signing divorce papers. She wasn't that kind of girl, was she? She decided while laying in bed one night that the only reason she felt that way was because she hadn't dated in almost a decade. She had no idea what she wanted and she was using him for comfort that she didn't deserve. He stood right in front of her, his jean clad knees almost touching hers. His larger hands lifted the computer out of her grip and placed it beside her. She stared at her lap and pulled her legs closer to keep the distance between them.

Bucky lowered himself to his knees so Katie had no choice but to look at him. He hated this game. Why did she keep him from leaving if she didn't really want him to stay? 

"Kate." Green eyes met his blues. "What's going on?"

Katie froze. It was that awkward talk she didn't want to have. Without saying a word about it, she knew exactly what he was referring to. Two weeks ago she made him stay with her by pretty thoroughly convincing him that she was falling for him. And she was. But it definitely didn't feel the way it should have. It felt so different from her love for Pete. Her ex husband was the one who took care of her in every way until she felt almost dependent upon him. Bucky, on the other hand, made her stand up, brush off the dust, and take better care of herself without anyone's help. She was so sure that it was a projection of her feelings for her ex that she was afraid to start something that she couldn't finish. 

She had to go out somewhere and meet someone new to see if this was real before she could let this go any further. She couldn't imagine causing this already damaged man anymore pain. 

A large, cold hand, slid over hers. She waited for the awkward conversation to begins, but it never did. Instead, Bucky stood, pulling his hand out of hers and started out the door. Panic rushed through her veins.

"Wait!" Katie squeaked.

Bucky turned his head with a raised brow. He was so tall that his body filled the whole doorway.

"Please don't go." She managed before her throat totally tightened. She felt like a fool. She was being so cruel, dropping just enough hints for him to stay. 

He smiled. "I'm not going anywhere."


	4. Consenting Adults With Anger Issues

On some Saturday in November, Katie put on some dark makeup and a bright red dress that looked like it had been painted onto her skin. She informed Bucky earlier that she was going out on a date. The guy was a doctor from her hospital. Bucky followed her around, hoping that she might put on a jacket or something, as she put in a pair of black feather earrings that hung down like tiny dream catchers.

He hated that she wanted to look like this for some _doctor._ Katie said the guy's name at least ten times but Bucky could only hear "blah-blah" when she said it. So that's what he called him. Bucky frowned and watched Katie line her eyes with black paint through the mirror. He wondered if dating was the same as it once was, or, if she planned to kiss this jackass on the first date. Or worse.

"Sorry Buck. I don't think you would want to go to a place like this. Maybe next time I can have _blah-blah_ invite a friend for you." She ran satin red lipstick over her lips. He could barely handle how badly he wanted to kiss her until she forgot all about this stupid date. She explained her reasoning behind it casually, as if he should feel the same. She wanted to date someone else to make sure her feelings for him were legitimate, or if they were just an illusion caused by her feelings toward her ex. Both justifications made his heart ache.

He didn't like that she was playing tug of war with him. One day she would push him against a wall to have a quick make-out session before work, or just upon coming home. Other days she would hide away from him, only interacting with Jade, refusing to even look at him. It was insanely frustrating, but a little voice inside told him to hold out for her. It wasn't every day that a man stumbles across someone like Katie and he wasn't quite ready to disappear from her life.

Just then Katie's flat, white phone lit up. She snatched it from the vanity before he could read the message. She knew it was one of his bad habits.

Katie bit her lip and looked at Bucky through the mirror anxiously. "Looks like you can come after all."

She sidled past where he stood in the doorway, careful not to touch him. She explained as she got changed in her closet that her date wasn't canceled, but that the guy wanted to make it a group date and that she should bring a date for his sister..

Emotions twisted and pitted in Katie's stomach. She thoroughly enjoyed having Bucky all to herself. From a clinical standpoint this could be useful. She could see if he was interested in other girls while she figured out the same with her date.

Black jeans and an olive green, loose fitting shirt with shiny buttons 1/3 of the way down was perfectly acceptable for a date in Raleigh. She just popped on a pair of low, heeled boots and stepped out of her room.

Katie took the way Bucky's eyes dragged up and down her body as a compliment.

The man in question made an excuse to bail on their newly made plans every few minutes. He didn't have anything to wear. That was false since Katie went to Kohl's when he first arrived and got him something for almost every occasion. He couldn't find his shoes. Katie just looked next to the front door, where a pair of tan boots stood. She knew he was running out of excuses when he fussed over leaving Jade alone at home for so long. Katie just rolled her eyes and took his hand, leading him to her car. They drove to her date's house where the doctor insisted they let him drive.

The drive was long, and Katie's date played some horrible, loud noise on the radio.

Bucky sat in the back seat with his own date. He was beginning to understand why Steve hated when he would bring him on double dates. It always felt like a set up. He felt heavily scrutinized by Katie's date, as if he felt superior to Bucky in some way. They shared an extremely terse exchange at the door about how Bucky didn't feel the need to shave before a date. Katie quickly defended, saying that she liked it on him even though he knew for a fact that she wanted it gone. For some reason this felt like a victory in Bucky's eyes.

Bucky's date was Sandy. She was pretty with very clear tan skin, a few scattered freckles, and dark black hair and eyes. She enjoyed horses and calligraphy. Her favorite colors were teal and pale yellow. And she was obviously too young for Bucky to take her seriously. She asked him some questions about his life, but he answered sparingly and absently. He was too busy watching Katie's nervous expression in the front seat. He deliberately chose to sit behind Asshole McDouche, a.k.a. Blah-Blah, so he could watch her. If she at any point wanted to leave he would do everything in his power to get them home.

They went to some bar called the Flying Saucer. There were too many beers. Why have so many beers on tap if there's only one real drink? Whiskey.

Katie was under the impression that he got his money from the government. That couldn't be further from the truth. In reality he was ashamed of how he came by it. Though, he knew that one day he would pay it all back in full.

Katie caught his eye from the other side of the bar where she stood with Mike, her lanky goon of a date. Bucky was surprised to have actually picked up his name at some point. He walked over. Mike had his arm against the bar, leaning over Katie. Sandy was off talking to a few college boys who came in to find some tail. So Bucky was stuck as the third wheel. It wasn't too bad. Any time Mike caught Katie looking at Bucky he would say something stupid to get her attention back. He wasn't sure if he was shocked or depressed that 70 years could make men completely unable to talk to women.

Mike excused himself to go find his sister, who was hanging on a frat boy in the corner. As soon as he was gone Katie lunged at Bucky, grabbing both wrists with all of her strength urgently.

"We need to go. _Now_." She looked up at him in all seriousness. She took his right, gloved hand and pulled him through the growing crowd.

Once outside Bucky reined her in and asked lowly, "What did he do?"

She blushed. "Nothing. I just don't want to be here anymore."

Bucky wasn't buying what she was selling for a second. But he let her call a cab without calling her on it. They took off in the night without finding Mike or Sandy to say goodbye.

Once in the cab, it felt as if both parties simply deflated from the evening's stress. Katie hadn't had a drink all night so she just smelled like her melon scented soap and faint cigarette smoke from the bar. Bucky knew he couldn't get drunk, but he loved whiskey anyway. She could smell it on his breath, but didn't appear to mind. She lolled her head onto his hard, metal shoulder and hummed a groan. "What I was thinking going out with a coworker?"

Bucky chuckled quietly. "No idea."

From the corner of her eye, she caught his gaze like a barb through her heart.

She tried so hard to ignore those sparks she felt. She tried not to remember the way his lips felt. Her tongue flicked out over her lips, remembering. She couldn't stay so close to him without acting on that driving emotion. Katie slid to the other side of the bench seat as inconspicuously as possible. She tried to pretend that his clicking metal arm hadn't draped itself over her shoulders.

She bit the inside of her lip and looked at the cabbie's seat. "I'm sorry Buck. I shouldn't have brought you out here." She apologized and twisted her fingers together. "It just, none of this feels _right_. I mean, three months ago I was married to someone I trusted more than I should have. Now I'm living with a guy who came out of nowhere and just happens to be everything I want. It feels like you can't possibly be real." Her green eyes turned to the side to look at him. "It scares me, a lot."

Bucky felt his heart swell painfully. She was right. But it didn't feel like she _should_ be right. He didn't just show up out of the blue. It was all planned. He planned to use her until he could fulfill his goal. But now he lived in constant fear that she would discover the truth. She might decide to watch the news one day. He might slip up and give something away. He felt love's sting a few times in the past, and he knew how hard it could be. The most poignant was dished out by the girl he was seeing during the war. He had loved her, though he never told Steve that. One day, she sent him a letter telling him that she was engaged to someone else. She told him that he should never contact her again. He remembered how much it hurt to know he wasn't the object of her affection.

"I would never hurt you." He felt his lips utter. He stared ahead, almost hoping she hadn't heard him. Almost.

Katie eyed him like a toddler with a chainsaw. Her heart leaped to her throat when he said those words. She thought about the way he would dance with her in the living room while they cleaned the house. She thought about the time they shot at targets in the yard and how much fun they had together. Half of their conversations were bickering over something, and even though it would get her angry, she was feeling _something_. Instead of flowery, beautifully sinful words uttered by her ex husband, she heard the stinging, truthful comments Bucky would make. He wasn't afraid of her, or how she might react. Pete had always ignored their problems, and so did Katie. Silence was the flame that set their relationship on fire and burned it to nothing but ash.

She remembered how Bucky made her sell her ex husband's instruments. How he let her break everything in her room when she found her wedding photos. How he forced her to sign her divorce papers, no matter how much it hurt. Maybe this was the way love was supposed to feel the second time around. Not light and perfect, but fun and tarnished. Maybe it was supposed to be like a restored classic car. It has its rusty spots and squeaky hinges, but it is beautiful and it works. It is that beautiful thing that others will stop and stare at on the street, knowing exactly how much time and effort it took to fix something so broken.

Perhaps with a little more elbow grease this time around, Katie would learn love someone the right way, rather than the easy way.

Bucky felt Katie's hand brush against his thigh as she curled his numb, metal fingers around hers. He looked at her smaller, softer hand in his. It felt so wrong, but _so_ right. She was falling in love with a lie. She didn't know the first thing about him. He was so afraid of telling her everything and destroying the trust he forced upon her that he decided he'd never tell her the truth. He would rather live out his days as her white knight then let her discover that he's nothing more than a monster.

Katie pulled her legs up on the seat and squirmed between his arm and hip, resting her head on his lap. Their fingers tangled together at her chest. He could have slept for days like that.

It only ended up being 45 minutes.

Groggily, the two untangled from one another and Bucky held the yellow cab's door open for Katie. She ran her card and paid the cabbie with a hoarse "thank you". She fumbled for her house key and yawned. When they got inside, Jade poked her head over the top of the couch and wagged her tail. Bucky locked the door behind them and lead Katie to her room by the shoulders.

Either she didn't remember he was there or she didn't care. She started pulling off her clothes as soon as she entered the room. Stripping her jeans and shirt. Then she pulled out her earrings and walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. Bucky was not going to be the fool who didn't take advantage of the stunning view.

Katie had well toned legs and a great butt from riding her bike so often. Her chest, although covered by a white bra, was small, and her stomach wasn't exactly perfect. In fact it was the opposite of perfect. It was the only part of her body that made him cringe internally.

Two slices were so deep that he couldn't even see the scars the way they folded into her flesh. There was ribbed scar tissue from old wounds that extended from the top of her ribs on the left side to her belly button. Then there were half a dozen old puncture scars scattered across that same side. The same went for her back. There were a number of deep, wide, pink scars that striped across her body.

The discovery of this flaw made Bucky feel much better. He wasn't the only one hiding things. He wasn't sure if he was happy that she hid this, but he knew it made him feel far more normal.

There was something about the way she moved that he found striking. Her motion about life was always painfully smooth. She had an athletic stride that told anyone around her that she was in control. She always seemed to know what she was doing, and why.

Bleary eyed, Katie walked up to him and took his right hand, pulling him toward her bed. Hesitantly, Bucky followed. She turned to look up at him hungrily, pulling hard on his hand to make him follow as she climbed backward onto the bed. A soft hand whispered over his cheek, pinching his chin between her fingers. Her breathing hitched when his cold left hand touched her bare waist. His hand retracted but Katie caught it, pressing it into her hip. Again, her eyes weren't asking a question. They were telling him what to do. He obliged every command.

Every searing hot kiss was followed by the cold touch of metal fingertips as he pressed his lips to one of the deep scars on her stomach. Her head bowed back, her hair cascading over the bed's side. Bucky slid one arm under her back and crawled the rest of the way onto his girl's bed, lips not moving from her neck as he adjusted her position to the bed's center. The top of her head rested against the pillows. She ran her fingers over the white and pink scar tissue that fused the metal prosthetic to his shoulder. He could barely feel the touch, but the sensation reached his heart. He kissed her temple with a sigh when those same fingers traced their way down his chest, then stomach, then...

Her nose ran along his scraggly cheek, turning his attention to her lips. Her kisses were typically gentle and sweet. Tonight they felt rushed and needing. She ran the tip of her tongue over the hard edge of his teeth, then along the inside of his lower lip before pulling it into her mouth, gently running her teeth over it before releasing. Those tense abdominal muscles slowly began to relax as she left them for somewhere a little lower. She felt Bucky choke a little, then start to pull away. But Katie was having none of that and squeezed a gentle warning.

Bucky stilled, unsure of what to do next. He had plenty of sex with girls before, but nothing like this. There was no such thing as a girl this ferocious. Where he came from the girls were all shy and reserved, they did their best to save themselves for marriage. He could feel her hold on him become gentle again. He took this as permission to move again.

His right forearm braced his weight next to Katie's head as he dipped into another melting kiss. His cool hand smoothed down her side to her hip where he ran his thumb in circles across her thigh, slowly moving inward. She didn't hesitate to start unbuttoning his pants. He pulled back just enough to catch her lust clouded gaze before kissing the corner of her lips, then made a slow trail across her jaw as she became nothing more than putty.

With her help, Bucky pealed her panties away. She shimmied them down her legs until they reached her feet then kicked them somewhere across the room. He wanted to move slower, to savor everything about what was happening.

But, again, Katie did not feel the same. She had him completely bare in seconds, his hardness in her hand. She could feel the heat of his tip radiating against her center where he hovered. She pulled him closer, until they were nearly touching, when she felt a cold finger suddenly push inside. A throaty gasp filled the small room when it filled her. The moment it retracted, he maneuvered a second finger into her with more effort. They slid inside, then out. Slowly at first, then faster. Her hips lifted to meet his fingers in a needy motion. He ran his fingers in circles inside of her. She could barely comprehend how this felt.

With an evil little laugh, Bucky slipped his fingers from her opening eliciting a small whine from his quivering lover. Katie hooked one leg behind his knee to pull him closer again, running her hands along his sides down to his thighs. But he wouldn't budge.

She wanted him inside of her. Right now.

"Bucky..." She gasped, grinding her hips up to try and meet his unsuccessfully. "Don't sto- _ah_!"

The head touched her quivering opening as Bucky melted against her body. She could feel every inch of her stretch and move to accommodate the welcomed intruder. It felt like her heart might beat out of her chest. Sweat from the sheer effort of holding back created small pearls across her hairline. Then, Bucky seemed to have had enough of the slow stuff. He shoved his whole length into her in one smooth motion. Static seemed to radiate from Katie's lower abdomen as he filled her so completely. She whined into his shoulder where she buried her head to absorb every bit of him.

It didn't take long for Bucky to set a hard, even pace. Katie squirmed and pulsed her hips up to meet his. He could feel her beginning to tighten around him, sucking at him until he wasn't sure he could contain himself any longer.

"Buck. Harder. I need." She begged in broken sentences. He knew _exactly_ what she needed.

He braced his weight over her head and thrust as deeply as she would accept. Her legs wrapped around his hips tightly His hand slid under her lower back to reach a new depth. Katie's head rocked back, eyelids half mast, to look up at him with these needing eyes. They fluttered closed. Her walls tightened as a tight spring snapped inside. She twitched and quivered as he rode her orgasm hard until he joined her shortly after. She felt him twitch inside of her and a hot stream of cum hit her cervix, sending her into another burning, perfect orgasm.

Breathing heavily, Katie reached up and tucked a bit of Bucky's brown hair behind his ear and pulled him into a slow, sloppy kiss. He was still inside of her. Small pulses told her he was still in the throws of his own orgasm. His breathing was perfectly even while she was a sweating, panting mess. He kissed her damp forehead as he pulled himself from inside of her, which sent another short burst of pleasure through her. This pleasure was far different. It warmed her heart and sent her head spinning.

Katie felt him move from the bed and Katie shot straight up and followed him with her eyes. He went to the bathroom and came back out with a towel, then threw it at her. Her heart ached as he pulled on his boxers, not looking at her once. Though her voice trembled, she had to ask, "Stay with me?"

Those gentle, tired, blue eyes lifted to meet her gaze with a lopsided smile as he moved to the bed, one knee, then the other until he was on all fours in front of her. Those full lips pressed to hers as if she was made of finely spun glass, pushing her back to the pillows. That was when she heard him whisper, "I'm not going anywhere."

...

Cool fingers ran over her hip bone, leaving a cold silk trail up her side. She rocked back a little until she felt a hard chest against her back. His one knee was strangled between her thighs. She doubted he minded at all. Bucky had his face smushed to the back of her neck, drooling just a little. She felt him begin to wake, but she kept her eyes shut tight.

Lips dipped into the hollow behind her ear. Then behind the lobe. Then the side of her neck. Each kiss was a sweet reminder of what she realized the night before. She _wanted_ Bucky. Perhaps it wasn't quite love just yet, but she was an adult who could have adult feelings for a man who obviously wanted the same thing.

Bucky's prosthetic metal hand was massive as he palpated up her ribs, cupping her torso just below her left breast. The sensation of his smooth metal thumb running just below her breast made her a little ticklish as one finger skipped over one of her old scars.

Katie didn't want him to know she was awake quite yet so she rocked her hips back a little as if stretching in her sleep with a deep breath. The hardness she found against her backside sent a thrill of lightning from her lower belly to her heart, remembering the exact feel of him inside of her. The slight yearning ache between her thighs was pleasurable in and of itself. His left hand never took hold of her breast, instead opting to lay flat across her chest, feeling her heartbeat.

She felt his smile spread against the soft flesh of her neck.

"Good morning." He mumbled groggily against her skin. She could even hear the smile in his voice. It was contagious.

"Hmm, 'morning." She wrapped her left fingers around the cold ones laying across her chest. He kissed her jaw salaciously.

There wasn't one thing she wanted more than to pull down her panties and have him right then, again, and again, and again... But there were other things that needed tending to. Like Jade. And toothpaste.

Katie licked her lips and tried to pull herself away. But Bucky had something else in mind. He parted his lips against her skin and gently ran the very tip on his tongue along the side of her jaw up to where he could take her earlobe between his teeth and pull it between his lips. She had never been so aroused in her twenty five years of life. She scrambled to get away, but he was just _so_ talented with that tongue. His cool hand slid to her inner thigh and squeezed just enough that she knew exactly where it was, and, where it wanted to be. Katie gasped for air as he ran cold fingertips gently over the inside of her left thigh, then over his knee to the right one.

That's when she stopped him. She reached down to grab his hand, effectively dislodging him from her neck and those tantalizing designs he was making across it so he could look at her, still partially asleep. His hair was standing in all different directions as he squinted sleepily at her.

She thought she heard a quiet laugh as she leaped out of bed and into the hallway, picking up random clothes to wear and stumbling over her own feet the whole way.

Bucky sat back against the headboard. He could still feel her lips across his chest, neck and face from the night before. Another part of his twitched at the thought of what transpired. He lay there in the Sunday morning light and thought for the first time that maybe revenge was overrated. Maybe _this_ was better. He could get a haircut and groom his beard to make it look better. He could get a job somewhere that didn't require papers. He could live _here_ with _Katie_.

His justification was weak, but it made him feel better. He could sleep with a Hydra operative's ex-wife and make her happy until the day she died. He could make her scream his name until her voice gave out. She could give him beautiful children and love that he never had before. He could live, and be happy for the rest of his life and never think about Hydra again. Wasn't that revenge enough?


	5. Honeymoon's Over, Sweetheart

"You look confident for someone who hasn't gone to class once." Steve Rogers jibbed the fiery haired woman who looked hung over when they met in the office parking lot. In reality, Natasha was being worked half to death by a newly established S.H.I.E.L.D. as they did their best to reconstruct what they had before. It was brisk and misty in the city leaving everyone feeling a little slower than usual.

Natasha gave a smirk. "My test was waived."

Steve gave her a disbelieving looks. "How?"

"Maybe _you_ don't know a thing about Sleepers but _I_ was trained to know everything about them back in Russia." Steve held the door open for Natasha, who grinned back at him over her shoulder with one brow raised. "Did you ever talk to Melissa from HR?"

Steve just sighed and looked to the ceiling before heading toward his class for one of the hardest written tests he had to take this far into his training. Natasha kept stride with him easily. Steve was an interesting creature. He spent his days working hard enough for ten agents, then spent his nights looking for his amnesiac best friend. Natasha would have preferred it if Steve just forgot about the Winter Soldier and got on with his life. The guy was probably already re-wiped and frozen for the next decade until Hydra needed him again.

"Do you ever think about giving up on him?" Nat asked, eying the tired way Steve held his typically perfect posture. "It's not like he'll remember you anyway."

Steve looked straight ahead, and without skipping a beat, answered, "He would do the same for me if the roles were reversed. He's out there somewhere; confused and deadly. He's too strong to be out on his own without his memory."

The hallway split up ahead, so Natasha started to one side while Steve went toward his class on the other side of the building. "So, any hints on how to pass this test?"

"'Gironomo'" Natasha said only loud enough for him to hear. His lips pressed together, confused. Natasha rolled her eyes and explained, "Every sleeper soldier has a different code word that will activate the chip in their brain. Say 'gironomo' during the test and it'll make them all freeze. It's basically an overwrite that makes them totally shut down."

"Thanks Tash. Want to get Chinese after this?"

Natasha was walking backwards at this point to continue looking at Steve with her hands clasped behind her back. She had a cat-who-ate-the-mouse grin spread across her lips. "And you say you don't know how to talk to women? Marry me, Steve!"

Steve hid the goofy grin on his blushing face by turning the corner without another word.

...

"Did you lose in a fight with a lawn mower?"

"Nope."

"Mafia?"

Katie laughed and shook her head.

"Shark attack?"

"Oh, please. If they were from a shark attack I'd be getting laid left and right."

There was a nervous note to Bucky's soft laugh. The girl drinking coffee across from him smiled over her mug with a wink.

"So, you _weren't_ attacked by lawn mowers. You weren't in the mafia, _and_ there was no shark attack." He stared at her briefly before shrugging deeply, throwing his hands in the air. "I'm stumped."

Katie smiled, low and mysterious. "Guess you'll never find out, then."

Bucky decided not to ask her about the scars, not seriously, at least. He would bring up these ridiculous options to make light of a terrible memory. The truth was none of his business. If he couldn't tell her about his own past grievances, she didn't have to tell him about her health. He knew they were from old surgeries. They were the reason she was discharged from the military. It was understandable that she didn't want to talk about them.

...

What was truly impressive about their pseudo relationship was that, even after they slept together, they were still friends. There was no awkward small talk or trying to decide "what they were". They understood that they were attracted to one another and that their personalities fed off of one another in a way that was beneficial to both.

His large palm pressed to the middle of her back, causing her to arch down with a low groan. The feeling was incredible.

During his time, women were different. In 2015, Katie Estrada would take control of him, push him down, make him beg for it. She would touch him in ways even _he_ thought were toeing the line of propriety.

Then, whenever they were both finished and satisfied, they would lay there and talk about all kinds of things. She was the reason he now watched hockey religiously, though he was a Rangers fan while Katie would probably fight him to the death over a Devils loss. They were in an ongoing argument over the way "How I Met Your Mother" was going to end. Katie thought Ted would end up with Robin while Bucky hoped the poor guy wouldn't be so stupid.

Bucky came home from a run one morning to find Katie dancing around the house with a broom in one hand and a spray bottle in the other. There was some kind of blaring noise dotted with high pitched vocals coming from a box speaker. Eyes closed, she twirled around with zero skill, yelling the lyrics into the spray bottle like it was a microphone.

" _This is the part when I say I don't want ya. I'm stronger than I've been before. This is the part when I break free. 'Cause I can't resist it no more!"*_

Katie's voice was _not_ meant to sing those high notes. She jumped when he took the broom, chucked it, and took her hand, dancing with her until she was folded over his arm, laughing. She accidentally dropped the spray bottle and Bucky jumped away from the loud pop as it cracked against the floor.

"You dance like an old man!" she cried, ignoring the leaking purple fluid all over the floor, voice squeaking from singing too much. At least it smelled like lavender now. She took Bucky's hand as she spun under his arm, tucking herself right against him, rocking her body against him with a smooth, rolling motion. It was quiet for just a second while the next song began to play. The music was more subdued now, just an acoustic guitar and some easy whistling. That's when Katie spun again, sliding her hands up his arms, making sure to feel every rib of his metal arm with her fingertips and every vein and curve of muscle on the other. The natural motion let his hands fall to her waist, his thumbs ran wide circles, lifting the hem of her shirt to feel her skin. Her own hands slid the rest of the way to the back of his neck, rocking back and forth gently.

She was singing the song to him. She smiled up at him, gently, lovingly, as she sang the notes quietly into the space between their lips. Her voice would catch in some spots and drop to a pitch more suited for her voice. It was imperfect, but it forced a wide smile from Bucky as they slow danced across the living room.

" _This weight's too much alone. Some days I can't hold it all. You take it all for me. When tomorrow's too much, I'll carry it all. I got you..._ "*

In another time, in another place, and in a vastly different situation, Bucky would have asked Katie to marry him. But it was all wrong. She was married to another man who she loved exclusively for a decade. Bucky could see the pain in her eyes whenever she found anything that reminded her of her ex husband. It bothered Bucky that such good girls were always ruined by bad men.

...

After their morning coffee routine, Katie flitted about the house, cleaning random things as she went in no particular order. The kitchen was finally done being painted, and Bucky had to admit, it looked much better than before even with its weird salmon color. The other day Katie changed out the knobs of the cabinets and bought some paintings for the walls. One she found at an antique shop. A small, red stitching of "America the Beautiful" with its sheet music written below an image of a little white house with an American flag behind it. She hung it above the sink so she could hum it as she washed dishes and flicked frothy soap at their dog.

Bucky had recently started referring to Jade as "his" dog. A few months back Katie commented that Bucky was the most stable male presence in Jade's life. The pride of that distinction gave him an unruly need to make Jade love him more than anyone, including Katie.

"Jade loves me more." He teased when the sweet black dog jumped on him before her owner for the first time. They just got back from a road trip to pick strawberries across the state.

Katie scowled at him, then the dog accusingly. "Shut up, no she doesn't. She just loves bacon."

He didn't try to hide his wide grin at the accusation. He would sneak Jade bacon strips when she jumped on him. Bucky dropped his arm around Katie's shoulders who rolled her eyes with a whining sigh. He loved pushing her buttons.

Even if one day he had to leave; Bucky knew that, at least while he was there, she was happy. Bucky had been living with them for eight months now, and had been in love with her for at least half of that time.

...

"Watch out!" Katie shrieked, closing her eyes as Bucky drove her to work. Her scrubs were bright green on top and polka dotted green and yellow on the bottom. Her hair in that incredibly tight bun that pulled the skin of her forehead back.

Katie hated the way Bucky drove. She felt like he aimed to kill everyone else on the road at all times. Now he made a game out of how many times he could make her clutch the door handle, twitch, and slam on her invisible brake.

Bucky laughed at her pale face and twisted the knob on the stereo to turn up the music. Wiggling a brow at Katie, he flexed his shoulders with the rhythm of the artless song about "Shaking it off". Katie shimmied a little to the beat, letting her head bob back and forth, lip syncing the lyrics. When she looked through the windshield, she closed her eyes tight and gripped the door handle, bracing herself for an accident that wasn't going to happen.

By the time he dropped her off at the hospital, her knees were shaking.

"Don't you _dare_ wreck this car on the way home." She slammed the door angrily and jogged inside to avoid the chilly spring air.

Once inside she saw one of her coworkers, Anissa. She was a black girl with flawless skin, bright blue eyeshadow and high cheek bones.

"Girl, _tell_ me that's your new boyfriend." Anissa shook her head with a hand on her hip as she signed Katie onto the time sheet. "He is _fi-ine_." She sang the "i" was the only important letter in the word.

"Oh no, it's not like that. He just lives with me." Katie picked up her patient list from where it was tacked onto the cork board.

Anissa counted on her fingers, rolling her eyes to the ceiling to recall. "...and drives you to work, and feeds your dog, and sleeps with you..."

Katie shook her head and turned to sign a patient's room assignment form to hide the creeping blush that found its way onto her face. "Ani, c'mon. You're taking it out of context. We are two consenting adults who share a mutual need for sexual satisfaction." Katie smiled at her friend. Anissa didn't just roll her eyes, but her whole head.

"Don't go all clinical on me." Anissa's pager beeped and she looked down with a groan. "We have a watch on Ms. Clemmons. Seems she found a way to make a Styrofoam cup into a knife."

Katie drooped her head, lifting her coffee mug to toast. "Here's to another fabulous night in Hell."

...

Was he being too rough?

Blue eyes scanned the massive bruises across Katie's hips from the other side of the glass door. Yep, those were _definitely_ from this morning. The way he held her up against the wall must have been too much pressure.

Katie sat on the porch in an awfully revealing bikini to catch a tan in the mid-April sun. There was a wave of crippling guilt upon seeing those bruises. They were created by Bucky's own two hands. _She_ was the one begging him to go harder, faster, like this, like that, until she was twisted into new positions that Bucky had never even heard of. He didn't know if she was being ignorant or plain stupid for ignoring those bruises.

He tried to be as gentle as physically possible. It seemed like any touch would cause her skin to turn dark with swirling reds and deep blues; then fade to yellow and green a few days later. People at Cedar Creek probably thought he was abusing her. The only times she wouldn't wear heavy makeup and long sleeves was when she was alone with him. When they would go out to dinner, or the bar, or just for a walk around the town, people would give him dirty looks for the bruised corner of her lip and the deep red mark across her jaw. All he did was kiss her.

That's when he stopped touching her entirely. All of this was incredibly frustrating. From the way he caused those marks, to the way she refused to acknowledge them. It wasn't healthy from either end. When he would try to bring them up she would duck away and talk about something else entirely. It was easy to see that she was hiding something bad, Bucky was afraid to find out what.

...

One Saturday morning, Katie and Bucky took Jade to a dog park in Raleigh. He wore his baseball cap low over his eyes so no one could recognize him. Katie could not seem to grasp why anyone would ever wear a hat when it was sunny.

"Is the light bothering you?" Katie asked for the fifth time as they leaned against the green wired fence.

"How many times are you going to ask?" Bucky answered through gritted teeth with a smile so they would look like they were having a pleasant conversation to others.

Katie pursed her lips and watched Jade bound across the massive field after a little Yorkie. The past few months of their arrangement were perfect. Only within the past three days had things started becoming difficult.

Bucky was acting strangely. He would go out for long runs. They were full marathons that would take him hours and hours to complete. She thought he might be training for a real marathon. When she asked if he was he grew furious and stormed out of the house like she had just insulted his mother. Katie asked again and again if he wanted to come out on the bikes with her, just so they could have some time together between sleep and work, but he preferred to be alone lately. She would try to kiss him and he would push her away. Needless to say, they hadn't had sex in a week. She had caught him using her computer when she got home from work in the morning a few times. When he left for his run, she looked to see what he was doing only to find that her internet history was erased.

Over the course of the morning he had found every excuse not to come out with her. Then, when she told him to stay home, he made every excuse to come along. Everything had been perfect. She didn't know what happened, nor was she sure how to go about asking what was wrong. It was her goal not to let their relationship feel like a _real_ relationship. She didn't want him to think she needed to know every last thing about him, or what he did. She only asked that he respect her privacy in the same way she respected his.

After a short, terse discussion about the sun being too hot for April, Bucky went to the car to be alone for a while.

Lately he was thinking more and more about Steve. It was hard to decide if he was making the right choice by staying away form his friend. He wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D. would take him in, or if they would throw him in some horrific prison. He wondered if Katie would wait for him if he left. He doubted that pretty highly considering how quickly she moved on after a decade long marriage. This fear was exactly why he tried not to see her during the day anymore. He wanted to distance himself as much as possible before the inevitable breakup. If he came out and told her why he came to her door that night in August last year, she would feel, justifiably, betrayed. He would rather not explain all of that. He knew he was being irrational toward her. She was only being so tolerant because she cared. But he wanted to hear her scream and yell. He wanted to see her snap so he could make himself leave without so much pent up guilt.

Katie couldn't understand why he was so tense because she didn't remember that a week prior he almost broke her neck. He didn't know if it was selective memory or if she truly didn't realize the danger she was in when she tried to wake him from that nightmare.

In a sober moment Bucky realized that he wasn't meant to live like this. He wasn't supposed to make breakfast and go to dog parks. He wasn't supposed to go food shopping and argue over who could push the cart. He wasn't supposed to spend the weekend watching "How I Met Your Mother" from beginning to end with a pretty girl under his arm. He was not meant for an _easy_ life, and it was beginning to show.

He was _supposed_ to be out taking down Hydra. He was _supposed_ to kill and maim and destroy until nothing else remained aside from hate and suffering. He was broken, and he wasn't _supposed_ to be fixed.

And, yet, there she was. The sweet thing that wanted to mend every wound standing in a blue sundress. Her hair was growing in brown halfway down her head. It hung, both blonde and brown, to the middle of her yellow and green bruised up back. Since he stopped touching her he realized that these bruises weren't just from him, they were from anything. If Jade licked her face, she would bruise. If she turned her head too fast, her neck would turn red. It was a major concern that he was trying hard to ignore.

That fine head turned to look down the hill at him, and smiled brightly. His heart sank. What did he do wrong in a past life to deserve all of this?

Bucky leaned his head to the steering wheel for a minute to bring his blood pressure down. He felt so stupid looking for flaws where there were none. He was just afraid that someone with so little baggage would flee and hide at the mere sight of his own. And he had a _lot_ of baggage.

He looked back up to the blonde. His grip on the steering wheel automatically tightened.

A younger man with black rimmed glasses and black hair swept forward to a point was leaning against the fence next to Katie, talking. She was smiling, like always. But she appeared a little weary. She reached over the fence when Jade brought her a stick and threw it. The two bantered back and forth ending with a shared laugh.

_I'm not going up there._

Bucky pinned his eyes shut. It was another five seconds before he could hold back no more and looked back at the scene. The hipster touched took out his phone and handed it to her. Bucky took another quieting breath looked to the passenger side door were a Glock 45 lay in waiting. Surely she was just being her friendly self. Nothing to worry about. He glanced back up to the happy pair, his back teeth grit together.

_I am_ **_not_ ** _jealous. I am_ **_not_ ** _going up there._

Katie tapped on the stranger's phone and barked a sharp cackle at whatever appeared on the screen. She appeared to type something before handing it back to him. She turned back to the dogs running about, Bucky could still see her mouth moving. The hipster continued gazing at her profile before trying to strike up conversation again.

"I _am_ _not_ going up there." Bucky muttered to himself out loud as if that would help it sink in better.

Then the hipster touched her hair.

Bucky moved so fast that he left the car door open.

"Hey Buck. This is Misha." Katie introduced the shorter man who looked up at Bucky with chestnut brown eyes. If Bucky was a Doberman, Misha was a Chihuahua.

"'Sup big guy." Misha's affected voice greeted with a soft wink. There was a moment of silence before Katie laughed hard enough to lean against the fence and start coughing.

This guy couldn't be further from straight. Bucky wanted to kick himself.

Later in the car, Katie drove with a sneaky little smile the whole way. "So what was it you were saying about not being the 'jealous type'?"

Bucky stared straight out the window. "...shut up."

...

Katie was looking for any excuse to make Bucky talk to her. But nothing seemed to work. Not even when she started singing "Tin Man" as they collected paint brushes from the garage. It usually got at least an eye roll or a fake laugh. All she got was a sharp glare and she let the song trail to a quiet stop.

Katie decided that they were going to stain the back deck. They had everything set up on the kitchen table with rubber gloves and painters tape for the siding and everything.

Then, Katie's phone lit up. A message from...

Bucky looked away, expression tight, knowing full well what was about to happen. He had no right to get angry over _that_ name. He knew Katie for less than a year. Her ex husband knew her for nine. His heart twisted nervously when he watched her constant smile fall as she snatched the device to read the long message in her head.

Katie wanted to throw her phone and watch it shatter into a million pieces. Pete's message said that he didn't 'want to waste breath arguing about what happened' and Katie didn't have to worry because he 'was somewhere far, far away'. _As if she was worried about that jackass_.

Then at the end: 'do not _ever_ call this number again.'

 _Wait_... _Again?_ Bucky only managed to catch a few key pieces of the message. From what he gathered, Katie had every right to lose her mind.

Before Bucky could figure out what she was doing, Katie was wearing compression shorts and a cycling jersey.

He followed her around as she put on her strange white shoes with pegs at the bottom and a foam and plastic silver helmet over freshly braided hair. She didn't say a word when she opened the door on the other side of the kitchen that lead to her garage. Silent as a shadow, Bucky watched as she lifted a thin tired bicycle from the wall. It was always amazing to watch her jump onto the turquoise thing and ride off.

He stood in the garage doorway and waited for ten full minutes. When she didn't reappear he grew restless. He cleaned up the kitchen table, then fed Jade, then sat outside on the porch and watched the fighter jets fly overhead. He was looking for every reason not to wonder why Katie had been calling her ex. He closed his eyes. It was none of his business, definitely not anymore. Not while he was systematically driving her away. This was the perfect opportunity to make her angry enough to kick him out. The thought of leaving forever made him a little twitchy. He looked out to the woods and squinted his eyes a little to see the corpse he left in the woods as a warning to others who might try to watch Katie.

The sun grew red overhead while he was playing fetch with the dog. Katie had left _five hours ago_. What if she was hit by a car? His mind turned to Hydra. What if...

Bucky ran out of the garage onto the pavement. He ran down the quarter mile driveway until he found Katie at the end. Her peddling was labored. The bike was a pendulum that swung back and forth beneath her, to the left, then the right, dipping far too low for comfort. Her eyes were focused ahead, her whole left side was spattered with mud. He slowed to a walk, which met her excruciatingly slow pace. Her breathing was heavy, and she ignored his presence entirely until they reached the house. She dismounted in the garage.

Without a word Katie started handing Bucky random items; a tire, the silver helmet, an Allen wrench. She threw the strange shoes at the wall with a forceful bang and slipped on a pair of sandals that had once been white. She took the items back from Bucky and pulled the tire from the wheel then used the Allen wrench on the very tiny petals.

"Pass me that tube." Bucky wasn't sure what she was talking about. "Tube: the folded black rubber in the package on the shelf behind your head."

He found it and handed it to her. He was amazed when she pulled a whole, new, still very skinny, tire and replaced the old one. The effort was extensive but she made quick work of breaking down the bike and putting it back together, cleaning each piece thoroughly as she went.

"Sorry about that." She mumbled monotonously as she worked. "It's crazy how just seeing someone's name can make your whole day fall apart."

...

The rest of the night was excruciatingly quiet. It was the perfect opportunity to make Katie lose her tightly coiled mind. But Bucky could barely make himself look at her her when she was so sad. All he wanted was to make her smile again. Her face wasn't suited for scowls. Eventually he managed to ask what was on his mind all day.

"When was the last time you heard from him?"

Katie's shoulders stiffened.

"Today." She slapped a black card on the table. "Your turn."

Bucky looked through the white cards in his hand deftly, deciding which choice was the wisest. "Why would he ask you not to call 'again' if you haven't been-"

" _Bucky_." She interrupted loudly. Blue eyes lifted from his cards to catch her intense gaze. "Just stop. If you _really_ need to know, I called him a few weeks ago. He hasn't signed off on a few things regarding our separation of funds. Since I don't know where he is I can't send the police after him for refusing to sign."

Bucky bobbed his head a little with his lower lip puckered as he thought hard on his next move. Just as he placed his white card over her black one, he realized something.

"We need more friends" he commented.

"Yeah, Cards Against Humanity is definitely a group activity." She snorted a laugh as she read the card he put down. "How about we call Mike and Sandy?"

They paused to let the idea sink in before doubling over the table, laughing until they cried.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "Break Free" by Ariana Grande
> 
> * "I Got You" by Jack Johnson


	6. Abandonment Issues And Puppies

Tears ran red trails down Katie's cheeks. Green eyes were accentuated by pink sclera as her lips trembled. Her whole body squirmed when Bucky dropped his hands over her delicately shaking shoulders. Right now she couldn't imagine anything worse than his touch. It made her skin crawl.

"You're in the way." She barked as she tried to reach around him for the silver helmet hanging on the wall behind him. When he refused to budge, she shoved him with all her might. It was like trying to push a wall. She couldn't see anything but that silver helmet. All she needed was some time to think about everything, a few hours of nothing but a pumping heart and clicking gears. Something to get her mind settled before discussing a breakup, or whatever it was that he was proposing. There were only a few things that truly frightened Katie more than the idea of total loneliness. She could handle being left for periods of time, but knowing that there is a light at the end of the waiting, that she could live with. But what Bucky suggested was stupid.

"You're not going out like this." A stern tenor spoke into the space between.

"Don't tell me what to do." Katie's voice was a higher pitch than usual as she tried not to cry. She could feel the muscles of her throat tightening as her emotions grew wild. "It's not your job to fix me. If you want to go, then _go_."

While Bucky was distractedly thinking of the right answer, Katie quickly darted under his arm toward her bike, throwing herself over the seat in one smooth motion. Before she could even pedal past her car in the driveway, Bucky was holding both of the handles in tight fists. Katie leaned back in the seat when she heard the metal moan under their tight grip. Inflamed eyes flicked from his hands to his eyes for the first time since he started this argument. She wasn't afraid, just a little weary.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, her voice sounding far more like a child than a woman. All of her fears were realized the moment she looked into those gorgeous blue eyes. It made her heart twist into a painful knot after all that happened today. She hated the way he looked at her like she was something that needed his protection, like she couldn't take care of herself. Katie touched her bare toes to the cold pavement to keep the bike from tipping as Bucky eased his grip, slowly regaining control.

"It's dangerous." Bucky warned into the tense stillness.

"Who are you to decide what's too dangerous for me?" Katie watched his eyes passively switch from anger to concern.

"You're not thinking straight." He watched her throat contract as she swallowed nervously. He straddled the front tire, hovering his hands above Katie's. Soft warmth emanated from them.

"I have to go, we can talk when I get back." Katie watched Bucky's pupils dilate. Five cold fingertips ran across the tendons of her flexed hands before cupping around her wrist, repeating the gentle action with the other.

"Why?" He asked, eyes tight with emotion. One warm hand slid up her arm to her shoulder, then traced up her other arm with a chilly touch before settling on both shoulders. His eyes demanded every bit of her attention.

"One teaspoon of prevention..." Her attention fell away, eyes distant as she remembered something a doctor once told her.

Green eyes then dropped a fraction lower, to his lips. Bucky's hand ran up the side of her neck to hold her jaw. His thumb ran slow circles over her cheek.

"What're you trying to cure?" He almost whispered. That thumb danced over her ear gently, easing her closer.

"Everything." Her eyes closed. She felt his gaze fall to her lips. She recognized this lightning, this magical anticipation. Kissing and touching Bucky was unmatched by anything she experienced before. She could feel the heat of his lips hesitate just above her own. She couldn't see, but she knew the moment his lips parted ever so slightly when his hold on her jaw softened, easing her chin up with his fingertips.

A soft intake of breath sounded from only a whisper's breath from her lips. The he pushed her arms length away, eyes frantically traveling across her face, arms and chest. She looked up at him, confused at first. Self-consciously she held her arms like an "X" across her chest to try and hide the evidence.

There was a massive, bright red bruise rapidly growing on the inside of her arm.

"What's happening to you?" He demanded, easing back to look at her. There were small, dark bruises all over her neck, arms and chest. They appeared to be in different stages of healing. They were like stars, the longer he looked, the more he found.

"I don't want to talk about it." She looked away from him. "It's none of your business."

"Who hurt you?"

Katie's eyes squeezed shut. "No one!"

Hands folded over hers, pushing her, and her bike, backward into the garage. The bike's gears clicked every few feet. "Why do you look like a victim?"

The accusation really struck her. A victim. She'd never considered herself one of those before. But really, was her situation so different from any other victim?

"Buck." Her eyes were dry, but her voice wavered under the weight of her own words. "Please don't go."

"I have to. There's something I have to do and it will be a while before I can come back."

She didn't look at him. "If you leave, don't bother coming back."

The words were an arrow through his heart. "Kate..."

"No. Don't say anything unless you're telling me one way or another. Are you staying, or leaving? Because I can't do this anymore. I can't love someone who isn't even here. I've don't that before and look what it got me. A broken heart and a lifetime of mortgage payments. It's not fair. If you wont let me go for a ride then you have to decide. Right now."

Bucky felt his breathing grow shallow, his heart stilled in his chest. Somehow he expected this to go smoother. In his mind, he imagined that Katie would have been happy to wait for him the way she had for her ex. Apparently that wasn't the case. He already knew he was leaving. He was able to locate S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new D.C. office. Bucky planned to get there by the end of the week, but it was looking more and more like he was going to stay for at least one more night.

Looking over Katie's skin, dotted with bruises; he wondered why he cared so much. They had no trust between them, why else would they hide so much? Even with no trust, he felt that electricity dance across his skin at her touch. It felt like someone punched him in the stomach when she said she loved him just a minute ago. How did this get so far? Months ago, he could have walked out of that door without a word and never thought about Katie again. Now it felt like removing his own spleen with just a spoon and some fishing wire to say goodbye. In this case, the smart thing would be to just go. To break her heart in one clean slice rather than drag it out any further. But that felt impossible.

"Kate?" Her eyes grew focused as they stared into his. With a deep breath, Bucky decided. "I'm not going anywhere."

...

"Still no luck?" Natasha smushed her lips to the side in an attempt at being sympathetic. Steve was beginning to look more like himself these days. Had he stopped looking all together?

They walked this route every day together. For some reason they had a very similar sleep and gym schedule.

Steve gave her a sad, sideways glance. "Not yet."

This daily question always made him upset, so she countered it with a better one. "I hear you passed that test."

"Yeah, aced it with that trick you suggested. Thanks." His face screwed up a little. "You don't think Bucky's programmed like that, do you?"

Natasha would normally take this opportunity to scare her colleague, but judging by the concern on his face he would take her words to heart. "Nah, Sleeper tech wasn't developed until the early 70's during the Cold War. I don't think they would want someone like Frosty running around with that in his head anyway."

"Why's that?" Steve asked, keeping stride with his partner.

"Did you even listen in class? And you call _me_ a lazy student." Natasha paused a moment with a mocking smile, Steve appeared less than amused. "The chip causes a sleeper agent to lose all control. The only one I ever witnessed killed fifteen people before being shut down, then decommissioned."

Steve nodded. If a normal person could kill fifteen, Steve didn't want to imagine the kind of destruction Bucky would cause. Knowing this only stoked the fire under his search. SHIELD already had an APB on Bucky, but that didn't help. It was so long since Bucky pulled him from the Potomac that he was worried that Hydra might have gotten their hands on him. The thought of it broke his heart. Bucky was a good man trapped inside of a ticking time bomb.

...

One finger slid sluggishly across Bucky's muscular shoulders. He liked to sleep on his stomach; face turned toward her, with one arm hooked above his head, the other touching her in some way. Tonight the side of his left hand sat parallel with her ribs. Those full lips of his twitched infinitesimally to a frown as he dreamed. It was rare to see him like this. Normally she was the one sleeping while he was out and about doing whatever Bucky does during the day. It wasn't common to see him so serene, especially not these days. She enjoyed seeing him so peaceful. Or, at least in his case, mostly peaceful.

There were times when he would mumble in his sleep. The things that came out of his mouth were sometimes horrifying. Violence, either to himself or other people, was a constant theme. He was embarrassed when she brought it up one night. He reluctantly explained that he had nightmares about his time as a prisoner. He warned her never to touch him when he was having these nightmares, to just let it take its miserable course. She made that mistake once, and only once. He woke, but the nightmare hadn't quite left him. She was on her back, his massive hand over her whole face, as fast as a lion on its prey. A blink later he realized where he was and went ballistic, telling her that she could have died and to quit being so stupid. She yelled back, telling him to stop being so protective, and it devolved from that to great, angry, makeup sex.

Right now, he was just sleeping. Dreaming about something happy, she hoped.

One little kernel of knowledge was that Bucky was fluent in both Russian _and_ German. He did not appreciate when she tried talking dirty in Russian, though. When Russian didn't work, she joked about his dumb, unkempt beard in Spanish, which he also understood. She didn't know enough to argue back when he spat a retort in Spanish, far too quickly.

There were so many questions she wanted to see answered. But at the same time there was so much that she preferred to keep hidden that it wasn't fair to ask. He noticed the bruises all over her body and how rapidly they were beginning to form. It felt so wrong to lie to him, but did she really have a choice? She knew it wouldn't be long before he left. It was something she'd been watching rise on the horizon for a few weeks, but purposely ignored. The idea of being alone was terrifying. Yes, she had Jade. But who else? She stopped talking to her family years ago when she moved away from home. Pete didn't get along with her parents, then some fight about her treatment happened, and then somehow she was cut off entirely. She wasn't sure when, or why it happened. But it did. And if she lost Bucky now, she would have no one.

Bucky's biceps quivered under her gaze and his round face twisted miserably. Automatically, her hand reached for his back, but hovered there; fingers limp, remembering the last time with a small scowl. She hated to see him in so much pain. She wanted to help, but she knew from her own experiences that sometimes keeping it under lock and key was better than letting the wild things out of your head.

It was the weekend so they were actually sleeping at night, for once. Even in the pitch black darkness of their room she could see his eyes fly open, his whites expanded, pupils small and dilating as he slowly recognized his surroundings; as he recognized Katie. He breathed shakily, evenly. She didn't wait for permission to touch him. Her fingers dropped between his shoulder blades and began tracing mindless patterns across the muscular expanse.

The hard divots and ridges of muscle were easy to find in the dark, especially when they stretched and bunched to flip himself to the side. Katie's fingertips slid across his ribs, drifting down until they could rest over his waist as he lay on his side.

Blue eyes watched her face without a word. When Katie found the courage to look at them her heart felt funny. There was one truly beautiful thing about Bucky and it was his eyes. Or more, the way he could make you _feel_ with them. Right now, it felt like she could only be an angel. There was no other reason he should look at her like that. A faltering, tired smile crossed her lips. His awed blue eyes softened until he touched his lips to hers, gently as if she was something treasured. His face was slick with cold sweat, Katie's hand moved to his neck, then chest. The same cold moisture formed there.

Those beautiful eyes held the quiet question asked by lovers before their last goodbye. He wanted to know why this was so hard. Katie didn't have the answer. His left forearm rested between them, she could feel the cold metal as a finger or two ran along her jaw. It's clicking and metallic scraping sounds were at first very distracting, but now they were just another part of life. They were comforting in their own way.

Nothing was quite like waking up from his vivid nightmares. He could smell those bitter chemicals in the air while voices told him to obey. Sometimes he would experience that painful shock that would inevitably reset his brain and wake up with Katie standing across the room, eyes wide and afraid. He never wanted her to be afraid of him, but in his own twisted reasoning, it was better this way.

One smaller, soft hand encircled his metal one when he touched her face. He was so afraid to break her. It was so easy to cause her harm without thinking. Bucky spent an unholy amount of time thinking about every muscle group when he was near her. Of he used too much pressure when he held her hand, it would break. If he picked her up, he ran the risk of crushing her. When he was with her it was particularly hard to keep from shattering her fragile bones. It gave him every reason to leave as soon as possible.

...

Moonlight was all that lit the scene when his eyes opened. It didn't smell like a laboratory. There was no bitter scent of ozone choking him, nor were there a half dozen men in lab coats pushing needles into his flesh. There were no hard manacles around his arms, or torso. Freedom of motion upon waking was odd. More odd when he realized he was somewhere soft, a sensation he was unused to entertaining. There was a warm presence beside him. He didn't move a muscle as he looked to the side to better understand the situation. The curve of her bare body was highlighted with white light from the moon. Blonde and brown hair tossed over a pillow wildly as she faced him on her side. Her eyes were closed, breathing deep and even. Sleeping.

Was she a whore? Was she his target? He had no briefings. There was no one here to give commands. Something deep within his mind whispered to kill her now. Another was telling him to go back to sleep, that this was nothing more than a vivid dream. As if on it's own, his hand slid up the woman's exposed side, taking in each curve and divot of her heavily scarred stomach. Knowing she would not wake from any small movement, he slowly moved to his side and lingered his head between her neck and shoulder. She smelled like _him. I_ t was the scent of raw sex and anger. For a moment he considered taking her, but, apparently, he already had.

If Hydra intended for her to die, she had to die. Why else would he be here?

His metal hand cinched around her throat. The gagging sound she made caused the ringing in his ear to return. Something was willing him to stop, but he couldn't. He had to comply.

The girl struggled, then twitched uncontrollably, then fell limp with a breathless grunt.

Upon hearing that tiny gasp of air leaving her body, every memory burst back into place, leaving Bucky on all fours, heaving his chest for breath. Both of his hands went to his heart, releasing his victim's throat. It was like breaching the surface after being submerged in ice water. His heart beat wildly in his chest, painfully, even. After a few, deep, liberating breaths, Bucky found himself staring at his unmoving victim. Someone he loved very much.

...

The bed was so soft that it enveloped Katie under a thick quilt and squishy pillows. Darkness was beginning to descend across her dreamscapes, lulling her into sleep. Deep, unmovable sleep was just within reach. Then, she felt Bucky's fingers drag up her side gingerly, as if he hoped not to wake her. The sensation sent lightning up her neck, scattering across her scalp like electric spiderwebs. His cold fingers swept over the side of her breast without pause, then danced over the point of her shoulder. Then, his fingers tangled into her hair. Katie smothered a smile. Bucky then twisted her hair, dropping her onto her back, a knee in her stomach to keep her pinned there, all in on violent motion.

" _Оставайтесь на спине. Не двигаться_."

Katie smiled a little, finally he came around about the whole Russian role playing thing. She reached up to touch his bare stomach to push him back a little, but his other hand clamped around it, hard enough to crack her pinky knuckle. "Ow. Not so rough, Buck."

Bucky's lips grew taut with anger, eyes intense and terrifying. " _Ктo тЫ_!"

Katie sunk deeper into the blankets, unable to find her voice through the fear and confusion. She didn't actually understand Russian, she just looked up anything he said on Google. The way he stared her down, like she was nothing, was more intimidating than anything she'd ever experienced. His hand slid from her hair to her throat, then began tightening, slowly.

Deep, mortal fear set in at that moment. "Bucky, really. Time to stop." Her voice was high and tight from the pressure around her neck.

" _Who the fuck are you_?" Bucky growled in a low octave. She was so terrified that her mouth went dry, further preventing her from speaking.

All she could squeak out was a desperate, "Bucky, please."

Those deep, dark eyes narrowed. " _Who the Hell is Bucky_?"

Survival instincts from years working in a home for the criminally insane kicked into gear. She gave a sweet smile. "I'm Katie. It's nice to meet you."

" _Tишина_!"

Katie's green eyes widened until Bucky could see his own reflection in those frightened pools of moonlit emerald. That reflection seemed to scream something important, but he wasn't sure what.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Как тебя зовут?" The girl below him stuttered in broken Russian.

Something in the back of his mind was screaming until it's voice was raw. It made his head hurt all the way to the core and drove him to answer with the first name that came to mind. " _Dimitri_."

The girl smiled through the pain as cartilage popped beneath his fingers audibly. "Hello Dimitri. I'm here to help you-"

Bucky's hold tightened on her throat until her voice choked out with a gasping hitch of sound. At first she didn't struggle, she simply watched his eyes; begging for her life like so many before her. But why did this kill bother him like an itch he couldn't scratch? He watched the life began to fade from her eyes. Her legs kicked wildly, her fingers clawed at his closed fist in a desperate attempt breathe again. She went limp. Every muscle released until she was nothing more than yolk pouring through the cracks of its broken shell.

Then, like a bullet to the back of his skull, Bucky realized where he was. Who _she_ was. What he was doing. He released his hold and fell back onto his haunches as far from Katie's limp body as possible. Did he just...? Was she...?

Bucky's lips parted, eyes on the two hands lingering before his eyes, turning and flipping to ensure they were truly his. Katie spasmed and coughed, taking deep wheezing breaths as she pulled herself into a slouched, seated position. Her throat burned and clicked from the fractured cartilage, the fractures screamed when she swallowed some of the blood in her mouth. She stared at him, eyes wide. Both were absolutely terrified.

"Kate, I.." He started, but his voice cut out. There was nothing he could say. There was no way to fix it. He had officially crossed a line that couldn't be overlooked. "Katie, there's nothing I can say to make this right. It wasn't me. I-"

"Are you Bucky, or Dimitri right now?" She managed to interrupt through a raw, hoarse voice. She wasn't angry, but definitely confused and afraid.

Bucky's eyes fell closed. "I'm _always_ Bucky. That _thing_ is a part of me. He's something I have to live with." Katie's heart fell when he spoke next. "But you shouldn't have to."

No tears came. Katie wasn't stupid, she knew it couldn't continue this way. Bucky needed _professional_ help. She was able to keep him on a relatively even keel for a while, but _this_ was far beyond her scope of expertise. She watched silently as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and found various clothing items to wear. She knew he was leaving. Katie didn't try to stop him.

"Bucky?"

He raised his eyes to Katie, but quickly looked back at the socks in his hand when they landed on her throat.

"You need help. Like, from a real professional. I'm not a doctor, but I do know what multiple personality disorder is." Her fingers floated up to her neck, wincing at the gentle touch. "There are drugs available, studies have shown that-"

"Stop." Bucky held up a hand, still unable to look at Katie. "You're right, I _do_ need help. It's why I need to leave. It's why I should have left a long time ago. I can't let you fall deeper into my rabbit hole. There's no getting out once you fall in."

"In case you haven't noticed- I fell into that hole a while ago. But you're right." Her eyes went to the window, shifting her kneeling position to settle further into the blankets. "I'm not afraid of your nightmares, Bucky. I'm afraid of what _mine_ might do to _you._ "

Bucky watched her profile, eyes moving along her soft silhouette for what could easily become the last time. "What are your nightmares?"

That mischievous little smile appeared on her lips. "Guess you'll never find out."

...

The next thing Katie knew she was waking on the couch with Jade standing over her, head tilted. There was yellow and orange light spilling into the room through every window. Maybe it was just a bad dream.

Still wearing her cycling cleats from her late night, emotionally driven bike ride, she walked about the house looking for some sign of Bucky. Some sign that there was ever a guest in her home. His clothes were gone, his targets were gone, even the dark hair in the shower drain was cleared out.

There was nothing to prove that Bucky was ever there. Nothing but a ragged throat that she would have to go to the hospital for.

Katie collected some health forms from the closet, and grabbed the car keys from the kitchen table. Jade looked up with big golden eyes as her owner stood in front of the door with this look of helplessness. Katie mindlessly slid a finger down Jade's snout. "You must have some serious abandonment issues."


	7. Airports Are Hard

Steve wasn't sure what to think of the clean cut, dark haired man typing as fast as a modern person on his very own S.H.I.E.L.D. assigned laptop.

It was six months ago when Bucky found Steve walking out of the supermarket. Only three hours prior, Steve had convinced himself to give up the search and leave it to S.H.I.E.L.D.. He figured that the computers would do their best to find Bucky, and if they couldn't find him, then he had to assume Hydra got to him first.

When Steve first saw Bucky, just barely hiding around the corner of the building, he almost didn't recognize him. He had a full beard, long hair reaching just below his shoulders, and worn eyes.

Bucky never said exactly where he'd been all that time, only that it took him a while to get back to D.C.. At first Steve wasn't sure what to say, or do. He was a little conflicted. He wanted to bring him to S.H.I.E.L.D. so they could help him regain his memories. But, as Steve quickly learned, Bucky remembered every last detail of his time as both Steve's best friend, and as the Winter Soldier.

It was two weeks before he could convince Bucky to go with him to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new headquarters. He would only go with the promise that they wouldn't arrest or torture him. Steve pulled a few strings and spoke to some people in high places before bringing a very twitchy super soldier to the new office. There, Bucky was expedited through the training process with the understanding that he wasn't allowed to do anything without Steve to oversee his progress. _And_ to make sure Bucky went to his legally mandated mental health sessions.

Bucky's therapist tried to put him on drugs, which he scoffed at. Then they had the audacity to suggest that he actually talk about his time as a murderer.

There were times when Bucky wanted to make himself disappear. Talking about his imprisonment, the torture he endured, the experiments, what it was like to freeze to death only to be reborn a killer; it was all so hard. But if this was what he had to do to keep himself from losing it again, it's what he would do. Bucky spent the entire trip to D.C. worrying about Katie. He worried that she wouldn't get medical attention and just ignore her potentially broken neck. He worried that her ex husband would hurt her. He couldn't bring himself to talk about her with anyone quite yet. It hadn't all sank in yet.

Every night, Bucky slept in his twin sized bed staring at the other side. It had become a habit to sleep on the left side every night, facing the right side to talk to someone who wasn't there. He expected the pain in his chest to slowly dissipate over time, but it never did. If anything, it got worse. He would spend hours trying to find her, just to make sure she was alright.

Bucky's therapist asked him once if he was seeing anyone. Bucky replied, no. Then, the therapist asked if he was sexually active since his most recent thaw. Bucky didn't want to lie, so without giving details, he told him 'yes'. The man with a long nose and spectacles that only wanted to fall down asked if Bucky had considered starting a relationship since his time as a vile, murderous monster. Maybe not in those words. Bucky wasn't sure how to respond to that one, so he took a drink of water and told him, "Next question."

Bucky read the notes as his therapist wrote them. " _Unprepared for intimacy_." Oh, if only he knew.

Steve could see how much of a toll the emotional work was taking on his friend. There were times Bucky would try to skip the sessions entirely, but Steve urged him to keep going. Bucky refused to admit it, but Steve could see that he actually liked to speak to the therapist. He gave Bucky a good number of tips on how to keep himself from having flashbacks. One, that Steve knew Bucky wouldn't comply with, was that Bucky shouldn't just lay in bed. He was told to only lay in bed if he intended to sleep. If he woke up from a dream, he was told to get up and do something aside from laying there feeling sorry for himself.  
Steve once, while passing Bucky's door, peeked in to see him just glaring at the side of the bed. He wasn't under the blankets, he didn't even look like he had changed out of his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. But there he was, staring down the bed like it wronged him in some awful way.

Steve was Bucky's padding through all of his reintegration. When everything seemed like too much, Steve would pull him out of the darkness and make him give a begrudging smile or two. After some time, Bucky began acting more and more like his old self. He would come back from his counseling to tell Steve what "that jackass" made him talk about that day, then continue to recap every horrifying detail with a note of humor in his voice.

The apartment was their sanctioned living quarters. Bucky was not allowed to sleep anywhere else unless they were given special permission from the director. Natasha and Clint would drop in from time to time to check in on his progress. The few missions they went on together were a massive success. They all worked together flawlessly, minus Natasha. She hated Bucky deeply. So deeply that she wouldn't look him in the eye, or call him by his real name. She would only ever call him Soldier, or Frosty.

The last few days left Steve and Bucky doing 'close quarters' exercises for a mission they were given. According to recent intel, Hydra ops had taken over a major pharmaceutical company a few years back and were using their patients as unknowing test subjects for numerous chemical cocktails. Director Coulson needed their team to go to Europe for a few months to check it out, make a plan, and kill it at its base.

"What the heck are you up to?" Steve asked, looking over Bucky's shoulder at whatever he was typing on the laptop. All he saw was the word 'K2" before Bucky quickly snapped the laptop shut and made a face at Steve.

"None of your business, punk."

Steve shook his head with a worn smile as he dragged out the chair across from Bucky to sit. "Coulson says we're set to leave in a few weeks. We'll be over there for a while, so if there's anything you want to do we should get it out of the way. Maybe we could check out that deli that bought our old apartment building."

Bucky pressed his lips together in thought for a few seconds before looking up to Steve. "There is one thing."

Steve raised his eyebrows. Since his return to reality, Bucky rarely asked for anything; not even clothes. He rewashed and wore the same things every day for two weeks until he was given a stipend from S.H.I.E.L.D.. He received 'disability' through the Army, too. Bucky was so furious when he got the first check that he sent it back with an angry letter explaining that he wasn't disabled.

Steve couldn't figure it out. He didn't use the money for anything. He just saved it up, and since the government paid for their apartment and food, Bucky didn't have to use it for much, either. His only expense was the haircut and hot shave absolutely needed once every two weeks like clockwork. At this point Bucky had accumulated a nice sum of cash in the bank account Steve helped him set up.

The next few hours were quiet as Bucky searched for plane tickets to some place in North Carolina. He didn't explain much; he just said it was important. Steve went along with it, no questions asked. They managed to find an early morning flight for the next day.

There was one barrier remaining between Bucky and Steve. He refused to admit where he went during all of that time AWOL. Bucky said it didn't matter, but the way he said it made Steve think it mattered a lot more than his friend was willing to admit. Steve observed how careful Bucky was about certain things. If they went to the gun range, he would take apart the gun and clean every last piece before reconstructing it. If they went anywhere he would start to put on a hat, then remember that he was cleared of all charges due to 'mental defect' at the time of the crimes. People were still frightened of him if they recognized him from news reports, but it was rare. For the most part they only remembered the uniform and the long hair. Steve made sure that everyone knew Bucky was an American hero who sacrificed more than most. Bucky didn't feel the same appreciation for his lot in life, but it filled him with a certain kind of pride that his friend defended him so fiercely.

...

There was a day that Katie took off of work. All she did was look through articles on the internet about this so-called "Winter Soldier" that Bucky called himself. He urged her to start watching the news and to read into his "background". If anything, the articles just made her feel stupid for never paying attention to current events.

There were, quite literally, _thousands_ of articles about "James Buchanan Barnes", "Bucky Barnes", and "The Winter Soldier". There were photos of Bucky. Bucky as a 1940's war hero, which couldn't make less sense if it was trying. Bucky as a Soviet war machine called the "Winter Soldier". Bucky as Steve Rogers' best friend.

Every muscle of her face dropped like a cannonball. Steve Rogers. She typed the name into Google and there were even more articles, current ones, about "Captain America". Her older brother was obsessed with Captain America and the Howling Commandos growing up. He had action figures of all of them, including Steve's closest friend: Bucky _fucking_ Barnes. How hadn't she noticed something so glaringly obvious? Was it blissful ignorance? He never hid his name, or much of his past. All he hid from her were the details, everything else was plain to see.

She tried to assume that he was just a psychotic look-alike. But then she saw the pictures of Bucky's arm with that scratched up red star on the shoulder. Eating pints upon pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream helped ease the crippling feeling of her world falling into a death spiral.

The two of them spent a good amount of time talking before Bucky left for good. He admitted everything he was holding back, minus a few important details. It was relatively friendly considering she could barely speak with a ruptured esophagus. She was told to keep her neck as still as possible for a few weeks. Her other option was surgery, but she wasn't keen on letting someone cut her throat open.

After a few days of loneliness and calling in sick to work, Katie called finally her mother.

It had been three years since she last spoke to her mom. They had a massive falling out when Katie moved away from New Jersey to live with Pete. It felt petty to cut her own mother out of her life for whatever stupid reason they'd been fighting. So, she felt that this was a perfect opportunity to reconnect.

"K2 Medical. Corporate Executive Officer, Patricia Estrada. How can I help you today?"

Katie bit her lip on the other line for a moment. "Hi mom."

The tinny, soulful gasp from her mother almost made Katie cry. " _Katie_? Is that you?"

"Yeah, I-"

"Oh my God. Baby, I miss you so much! Please tell me you're coming home." The woman's deeper voice was cracking under the weight of her own emotions. "Sweetie, I will get you on the next plane up here if you need me to. Even if it's just for a little while. There's so much to talk about. I'm so sorry for how childish we were about Pete."

Katie heard the succinct taps of a keyboard on the other end. She rolled her eyes and quirked a brow, her mother was actually going to buy her plane tickets. "Mom, I-"

"I'll even get Pete a ticket if you want-"

" _Mother_!" The line went quiet long enough for Katie to get a word in. "Pete and I split up."

"That's grea- I mean, _terrible_! Just terrible! Are you all right down there all by yourself? Those people in the south are so uncivilized-"

" _Mom_!" Katie screeched, then had to laugh just a little at her mother's small minded scope of the world. "People down here are very nice and, no, I haven't been alone. I was... seeing someone."

"Did you cheat on Peter? You can tell me sweetheart, you know I wont tell a soul."

"No." her heart squirmed like a toad. "Actually, he cheated on me. And lied about, well, everything."

"Tell me everything, from the beginning. And, so you know, your plane leaves at 10:15 tomorrow morning, so make sure you get to the airport an hour early for check-in and security."

Katie rolled her eyes with a bright smile. It was something blissful to hear her mother's voice again. Over the course of a four hour phone call that cut into her mother's conference, Katie explained why she and Pete got divorced in detail. She told the truth about how she and Bucky met and how long they were together; all culminating with when he left without a word three days ago. Leaving out minor details, like sleeping with a renowned Soviet Winter Soldier/American hero.

It was like speaking to a therapist, or ripping off an itchy bandage. It hurt so badly to get it all out. But when her mom next spoke, Katie could barely believe what she heard.

"You know, we split off part of the company a few months ago. I think you'd do really well with sales. Then you could some time with your brother before he leaves for Afghanistan in November." Katie could hardly keep up with the random assortment of topics. There was a split second of silence. "Did you know that once every decade of so, the great northern pines of Russia burn into nothing?" Katie was silent in the other end, unsure of where her mom was going with this analogy. "Don't you think it's interesting? Some things, no matter how large, need to burn to nothing more than ash before they can grow the way they were meant to."

A slow growing smile emerged on Katie's lips, understanding the meaning perfectly.

...

The next morning, before the sun even began to peak over the city, a black car picked Steve and Bucky up from the curb with their backpacks.

The airport was an interesting experience with Bucky. With his sharp new haircut he wasn't easily identified as a 'bad guy' until people saw his arm. Which was why airport security was Bucky's arch nemesis. He walked through, the metal detector screamed. Bucky removed some change from his pockets and walked through the black archway again. The machine wailed just as loudly.

People looked at their phones for the time, angry grumbles hummed over the growing crowd.

TSA called the police. The police called the Pentagon. The Pentagon called S.H.I.E.L.D.. And S.H.I.E.L.D. then had to send an executive to clear the air. Through it all Steve could tell that Bucky just wanted to eat his own hat. When they finally got cleared to board their plane had been delayed by over an hour. Everyone just stared at them with tired, angry scowls. Bucky kept his head down low as they ambled over to their seats. Steve smiled at anyone who tried to give them dirty looks. A few of them recognized him and smiled back.

A short nap, and one smooth 45 minute flight later, they landed at Raleigh-Durham Airport. Bucky arranged for a rental car to meet them outside. Steve didn't know if Bucky even remembered how to drive, until he got behind the wheel of the bright yellow sports car and peeled out of the parking lot.

Roads here were so flat and open that the hour long drive passed quickly. Steve asked tons of questions that still needed answers. Where were they going? What was the big deal about North Carolina? Why did Bucky decide to rent a bright yellow Camaro? _Why are we going 105 in a 70mph zone?!_

In what felt like no time at all, they were pulling into a hidden driveway covered on all sides by thick forest. At the end of the impressively long driveway was a tiny white house with a garage and rose bushes on either side of the walkway to the front door.

Bucky didn't answer many of Steve's questions during the drive. The ones he did answer were extremely vague, or they pertained to something other than their current mission. Bucky was generally very quiet through their whole day. Steve assumed their debacle this morning at the airport probably put him in a bad mood. Bucky sat in the drivers seat after turning the engine off, just staring at the house for a minute quietly before hoisting himself out of the car.

Steve followed, but left distance between them to watch his friend who knocked on the front door hesitantly. It was incredibly quiet, not even the sound of cars reached this place. All Steve heard was the distant hum of jet engines and chirping birds as they flew about.

_Bang, bang, bang_. Bucky knocked hard enough to shake the front porch, potentially fracturing the wood door. Steve walked up the three stairs and leaned against the wall next to the door, waiting for whatever Bucky seemed to anticipate.

Whatever it was, it never came.

Steve could see a glimmer of panic in his friend's eyes before he knelt down to knock over a zombie lawn gnome next to the door to pick up a weathered gold key. He slid it into the lock with a special little jiggle to make it turn. When the door opened, Bucky couldn't move his feet. He stood in the doorway; head turning this way and that frantically.

Steve followed when Bucky eventually strode into the house as if he owned the place, knotted fingers pulling at his short, side combed hair as the panic in his eyes festered into fear.

Steve looked around the small house as his friend tore it apart. Steve didn't really understand what Bucky was searching for. He tore through the place like a tornado on fire, tearing doors off of hinges and full cabinets off the walls, leaving plaster dust to linger in the air. He didn't stop until he finally threw the glass back door open and trudged through, leaving it open behind him. Bucky leaned heavily against the railing of the back deck, resting his forehead to his hands, fingers tangled in his brunette strands. For once, Steve couldn't think of what to say.

"She's gone." Was all Steve heard before Bucky's few hints snapped into place. During his time AWOL, Bucky must have found himself a girl.

Clapping a hand to his shoulder Steve assured his friend, "We'll find her, don't worry."

"No." Bucky barked, his face gnarled then went slack. His eyes fixated on the woods. "She doesn't want that. If she wanted me to come back she would have left an address, a phone number, something." His voice trailed and eyes clamped shut. "Katie's crazy about details."

Steve felt his own heart sink at the sadness in Bucky's voice. "What if she just forgot?"

"The way I left, well," Bucky smiled without a hint of happiness. "Let's just say I didn't give her any reason to want me around anymore."

"You know you can talk to me, Buck. What happened?"

Deeply lidded eyes fell to the dirt under the deck. "I wasn't right back then. Some things went down that I'm not proud of and we split up. I only came here to make sure she was okay."

"Were you expecting something to happen? You should have told me sooner, we could have put a watch on her." Steve leaned up against the same wooden railing as Bucky and looked out to the expanse of forest behind the house. His eyebrow twitched up. "You see that?"

Bucky lifted his head and followed Steve's eyes to the woods. The two of them had far better vision than others. Bucky knew that Katie never noticed the rotting corpse in her yard, but Steve was quick to find it, and smell it.

"I killed him." Bucky revealed without the faintest hint of remorse. " _Hydra_."

Blonde brows low and expression troubled, Steve gently tiptoed around Bucky's vague explanation. "Why was an Hydra op watching her?"

Bucky looked over at Steve like he was torturing him. "Katie's ex husband is a chemical engineer for Hydra. He probably sent people to watch her." Before Steve could say anything he added, "I already gave S.H.I.E.L.D. his last known location."

"You realize that could mean-"

" _Don't say it_." Bucky's lips tensed together, eyes set back to the dead man in the woods. He didn't want to imagine that they would have come after Katie. It would be a waste of time on their end. She was useless to them. They already had a S.H.I.E.L.D. trained chemical engineer on their side. A sick nurse would do them no good.

"Bucky, you did what you had to. You couldn't live as a shadow forever." Steve assured Bucky. But Steve's words didn't appear to reach his sulking friend. "Is there anyone who might know where she is?"

...

This time Steve drove. He thought it best to keep Bucky away from the controls of a motor vehicle when he was this stressed. Bucky was an aggressive driver as it was. He didn't need to have an aggressive driver with a lead foot behind the wheel.

They pulled up to a red brick building with sparse windows and a circle driveway. Bucky's eyes grew distant as they entered the hospital. It smelled like old people and hand head nurse of the home for the criminally insane, Cedar Creek, was more than helpful. She flirted with Steve shamelessly from the moment they stepped through the door.

"Anissa, would you be a dear and help this nice fellow? He's lookin' for Miss Katie."

A dark skinned girl in sunny yellow scrubs appeared from within the office with a clipboard. She looked Bucky up and down with an expression that told him not to say a word or he'd be slapped hard enough to send his head from his shoulders.

As soon as the head nurse went back to work, Anissa attacked. "Who the Hell do you think you are coming here? Don't you think that poor thing deserves a little peace and quiet?"

Steve's eyes slid to Bucky, whose hands were shoved deep in his pockets, making him look abnormally small. Steve could only imagine what Anissa was talking about. Bucky didn't speak as Anissa tore him a new one. Bucky thought that today have gone much worse.

"...and another thing- if you go bothering her and word gets around to me I will personally see to it that you disappear. Hear me?" Anissa looked down a sheet of paper, using one finger as a pointer to find her friend's name. "She's a great nurse. Presbyterian is lucky to have her. "

Bucky took the page with a quiet "thanks" as Anissa pushed him out of the way so she could get back to work. His eyes scanned down the page for one name. When he found it his eyes looked like they might fall out of his skull. Steve took the page and looked at it himself. His own eyes bulged when he saw Katie Estrada's forwarding address.

Both sets of blue eyes met.

Bucky's low voice was the first to say it out loud, "She's in New York."


	8. Angio-blah-blah-blah

"1156 on 106th, between Amsterdam and Broadway." Steve went to pull out the map as they stepped out of the bus terminal.

Bucky rolled his eyes while holding the door for a lady and her infant. "I think I know my way in my own damn-" Bucky's voice dropped when he let the door drift closed. The sight was astounding. He finished lamely as his head swiveled to take in all the surrounding activity. "-City."

Steve grabbed Bucky's arm and dragged him through the rushing crowd and called over his shoulder, "There's one rule: don't stop."

Yellow cabs bumped into each other as they hurried across the crosswalk to keep people from cutting them off. There was a man selling old books on a table with some postcards and calendars strewn about. A pair of women dressed in all black with tall boots and fishnets walked by holding hands. There were people crowding both sides of the sidewalk, but there were two obvious streams of foot traffic. Steve jerked Bucky out of the opposite stream before he could walk into a little kid with headphones. Bucky just couldn't focus; so much had changed.

"We can either walk or take the subway." Steve looked over his shoulder at Bucky who wasn't paying attention in the least. He looking more and more like a very confused tourist. Steve rolled his eyes and gripped Bucky's upper arm tightly so he wouldn't get swept away. "Guess we're taking the subway."

Steve swiped his metro card and pushed through the turnstile before handing it over the railing to Bucky. He looked at the card, confused, and then swiped it about ten times, too fast, before it finally worked. A massive, irritated, line formed. On the packed train there were far too many people. It felt like being packed into a smelly sardine can traveling fifty miles per hour. A young lady backed away from Bucky into Steve and continued to talk to him for the rest of the ride with a star struck smile. Bucky wasn't invisible, the way he thought he was. Instead he was overly visible, horrifyingly so. Some parts of the Winter Soldier were gone, but his resting expression was a scowl. It wasn't intentional.

Bucky closed his eyes for half of the trip even though he wanted to look out the window. People themselves didn't make him anxious. He was used to looking for threats in every single person around him. It was making his head hurt. Closing his eyes also helped to block out all the frightened looks he received from older people on the train, holding their purses tightly.

They got off at 108th and walked the rest of the way.

It was quieter here with far more trees and fewer people walking the sidewalks. Steve explained to Bucky how Harlem was beginning to change and that this area was now better known for the arts. The concept was beyond him. They passed a brunch place that smelled like fresh sausage and burnt coffee. Each storefront had a different smell. They all mingled in a muddled, nasty scent as they walked. Finally, just two blocks down, they arrived at the corner of 106th.

Bucky took deep, even breaths to calm his nerves. Since tearing up Katie's house he spent every moment worrying himself sick. Steve discussed the possibility that she might not be at this address either. Bucky couldn't accept that. He went through with all of that intensive therapy; he even tried taking sleeping pills (Which did not work, by the way) to give him the chance to redeem himself. All of the hardship was to make sure he never hurt someone he loved again. To move on, he had to know that Katie was safe without him.

The many, loud, buzzing thoughts went silent when they stopped in front of an ornately designed red mud brick staircase. There were black, wrought iron gates blocking them from the garbage cans underneath. Bucky found himself unable to move, so, Steve took the initiative and walked up to ring the appropriate buzzer: 2E. After a moment of painfully still silence, a voice came through the outdated, tinny sounding intercom.

"Yeah?"

It was a man. Bucky's breath hitched, dimming his concern.

"Sorry we're just trying to get in the building. Lost my key." Steve lied clumsily. There was a loud buzz that unlocked the door for a few seconds, just enough to get them both inside.

Jealous thoughts plagued Bucky as they made their way up three creaking, old flights of stairs. It wasn't his right to be angry. He knew from the start that she would move on and forget all about him. That was just his luck and he was used to it. He was still trying to convince himself that he wasn't the jealous-type when they reached the right platform. There were two doors next to one another. Bucky's heart sputtered when he finally accepted what lay behind that door.

Again, Steve took the initiative and knocked on the door marked "2E" in chipped gold metal lettering. They waited for an answer. Steve seemed to have the same worries. The way he looked at Bucky made him feel silly for coming all this way. Like he was ridiculous for thinking Katie might be the person to wait. The eye hole clicked open with a small metallic click, then closed again.

The door creaked open just a little, then, after some quiet, low talking, opened it all the way. In the frame stood a bald man, early thirties, with green eyes and a disgruntled look about him.

"Whacha need?" He asked in an incredibly low, demanding, Bronx accent.

Bucky eyed the man up and down like a wild bear. He was a little shorter than he and Steve, but not nearly as solid. During the time he spent with Katie, he gained a pretty good idea of what her 'type' was, and this certainly wasn't it. Maybe this wasn't her address. Maybe it was a mistake.

All of that 'not the jealous type' crap went flying out the window. "Who are _you_?"

Steve instinctively grabbed Bucky's arm to keep him from lunging foreword at the man. They'd been in similar situations in the past, Steve knew exactly how angry Bucky could get in these situations. Bucky took a hard step toward to the man in the doorway, trying to drag them both into the apartment.

Reddening with anger, the man shouted, "Who am _I_? _Who am I?_ Who the _Hell_ _are_ _you_?"

Clapping one hand over Bucky's mouth, Steve used his full body weight to pull Bucky back toward the stairs. He gained only one, backward step to increase the distance between him and the door. The dark haired super soldier was having none of Steve's efforts.

"Sorry, sir, we must have the wrong address." Steve explained politely, grunting a little from the effort of holding Bucky back, saluting lightly with the hand wrapped under Bucky's metal shoulder.

The big guy's mouth fell open, every bit of angry aura dropped to the floor like glass. It was as if all of his New York temper evaporated, replaced with the awe of a kid. "Holy shit! You're Captain America!"

Steve sighed when Bucky's biceps turned to stone under his grip. Bucky never felt jealous of Steve's fame, but it certainly bothered him that they didn't know his real name. Most of them barely knew the role Steve played in the war, only his movies and comic books. Steve was a great guy who deserved recognition for his accomplishments, not some marketing ploy for bonds.

"Yeah." Steve answered sheepishly. The man in the doorway cracked a childlike grin when he said, "Call me Steve."

"Dude, you have no idea. I'm a huge fan." The guy looked from Steve, back to Bucky. His grin wavered a little until dropping entirely to shake his head disapprovingly. "You're one weird motherfucker, you know that?" He addressed Steve again, looking a little disenfranchised that Captain America would hang out with someone who looked like a cartoon villain. "What're you doing bumming around with super-freak, here?"

Steve narrowed his eyes at the man, voice tight. "He's my friend. You might have read about him in history books: James Barnes."

The man's face looked like it might break from happiness.

"Fuck you, no way. _You're_ Bucky?" He scoffed, disbelieving, waving his hand flippantly. A second passed as he reassessed the two men glaring at him aggressively just beyond the safety of his apartment. They were dead serious. Smiling like he pitied the angry fool, he said, "Kate is going to have a fucking fit when she sees you."

Steve dropped to his back, hard. Bucky suddenly went slack and stood straight, ducking from Steve's grip to get closer to the strange, bald man. "Is she okay? Where...?"

The bald man rolled his eyes and leaned a shoulder heavily to the doorframe. "She's getting her blood poison right now. Should be back within an hour. Want a beer?" He held a hand out to Bucky to shake. "It's good to finally meet you in person. I feel like I've known you forever the way she talks. I'm Kyle, by the way. Kate's brother."

Steve eyed his friend for some kind of reaction. But he was almost positive that Bucky had just simply shut down and could no longer function as a human being. He just stood there, relaxed shoulders, hands slack at his sides with his mouth hanging open just a little, eyes totally vacant as he stared at Kyle's hand.

Kyle pursed his lips in thought before shrugging and putting the lingering hand in his pocket. "If you want, I can let her know you stopped by. She wont be thrilled you left, though."

Bucky didn't answer as he turned on his heel and trudged down the stairs without answering.

As soon as the Fall air hit his face Bucky relaxed. Every muscle in his body wanted to shake from being held so tightly. Partially from the adrenaline rush of realizing he could have easily killed Katie's brother. Palms pressed to his face, Bucky breathed deeply four times, just like his therapist told him, and sat on the cold, stone, stoop. He was mortified.

Thankfully Steve stayed with Kyle talking for a few more minutes before meeting Bucky outside. The two massive men sat shoulder to shoulder.

"It's okay, Buck. She's alive, that's what matters, right?"

Bucky stared at the sidewalk, ignoring Steve's words entirely. Something Kyle said finally reached his brain for processing. "What did he mean 'blood poison'? Is that some modern thing I haven't heard of?"

Steve watched Bucky sadly, remembering that he still had a lot to catch up on. He wasn't going to be the one to tell Bucky what Kyle had meant. Katie's brother explained everything to him in the short time they spoke. Kyle was rewarded for the information with an autograph on his "Captain America" t-shirt.   
The guy was easily pleased if nothing else.

Clacking steps bounced in rhythm down the sidewalk, only stopping to sidle past the two who took up the whole top step of the stairs. Bucky shifted over to make room. A man in uniform was carrying his girlfriend on his back like a monkey. He was dressed in an Army dress uniform. She was wearing polka dotted sweats and a slouchy black and purple striped hat. Her clothes hung off of her like a scarecrow.

"...I think Ky would know if he met freaking Captain America... You think I'm lying?..." The man spoke quietly to the girl, whose face was buried into his shoulder.

Bucky watched them over his shoulder from the corner of his eye, he zoned out whatever Steve was saying in his right ear.

"... I don't want him to see me like this, in a few months maybe when I'm done with chemo..." The girl responded in a gravelly voice.

Noticing the absent expression on Bucky's face, Steve's eyes turned to the couple as the man slid a key into the lock, letting go of one of the girl's legs briefly. She sunk slightly before he could hoist her higher onto his back with a little hop.

"...Kate, you can't do that to someone. Even if he is a total prick..."

She laughed lightly. A very recognizable laugh. Bucky could hear that laugh in a crowd and know exactly who it belonged to. Bucky turned fully to look at the skeletal girl clinging onto the tall, broad soldier. No, it couldn't be.... could it?

"Katie?"

The girl in the hat turned her head, letting it loll to the side a little as if drunk, and scanned the area. But she didn't look down. Bucky's throat felt too tight. Why did she look like she'd been drugged? Without thinking, he jumped to his feet and turned so that he was within her line of sight. She was so pale, there were deep purple bags hanging heavily under her eyes. Recognition very slowly reflected in her drunk, partially sunken eyes.

"Bucky?" She squeaked with a small crack in her voice.

The dressed up soldier turned to follow her gaze lazily, as if he knew what awaited him. With a heavy sigh, he let go of her legs and let her drop to the ground on her tip toes, his hands guiding the fall.

She wobbled. The man steadied her, offering an arm as a ledge to lean on. A weak smile made its way across pale lips as she looked up at him, one eye squinting more than the other. "What're you doing here?"

Reaching with one trembling hand, she touched Bucky's chest, gently, then clutched the front of his shirt. She took a step toward him, letting go of the soldier and moving her trembling weight to her slight hold on Bucky. He took the cue and gripped both of her impossibly bony shoulders to keep her steady.

"I came to make sure you're okay." His eyes trailed over her hollow cheeks and boney collarbones, horrified at her state. "What happened to you?"

Without acknowledging his words she smiled as if in a daze. Even her eyes were clouded. "It's too cold out here, come upstairs. This is Miles, my baby brother. He's a Ranger. I'm so proud..."

Bucky felt his heart plummet to his stomach leaving a cold trail. The soldier didn't so much as look at the two super soldiers before picking Katie up like a little doll and opening the door. At least he kicked it open so they could follow. The walk upstairs was quiet aside from Katie's nonsensical ramblings.

Once inside, Miles placed Katie on a black leather couch. "I'll be back in ten, make this quick." he said loud enough for Bucky to hear. He had the feeling he'd somehow made a bad impression with both brothers in one day. Miles retreated, dragging Kyle, who couldn't stop raving over Steve, into another room.

Katie waved with her fingers at Steve and smiled. "Hi. It's nice to meet you."

He gave a guarded smile in return. She then turned her attention to Bucky.

"Looks like I have some 'splaining to do." Smiling like a happy drunk, Katie's hand reached up and pulled down the soft, slouchy hat she was wearing to reveal, well, _nothing_. She was totally bald, including her eyebrows and eyelashes. Katie vaguely remembered Steve asking to use the bathroom when she did this, seeming a bit uncomfortable with her appearance. She pointed to a door across the apartment and he was gone. Chewing her lip nervously, she looked Bucky up and down. She bit down to the point of pain to keep herself focused. She was chalk full of morphine to help with the pain of chemo. With clouded, double vision she could see a very clean-cut version of the man she lived with for a year. She was almost resentful of how good he looked while she looked like death incarnate.

Taking a deep breath to keep her stomach in check, she explained as loudly as her dry throat would allow. "I have an angiosarcoma. It's a malignant neoplasm of the epithelial cells within my myocardia."

Bucky's eyes glazed over at 'angiosarcoma'. Biting her lower lip, she giggled airily. "Sorry, I'll speak English. Its an incurable tumor in my heart." The handsome, dark haired man leaning over the back of the couch paled a shade, unable to look at anything but the top of her shiny head.

Katie felt instantly self-conscious and started jabbering nervously, "It started as lymphoblastic leukemia a couple of years ago but now it's spreading everywhere. It's not surprising though, I quit my treatments the day my ex left for his deployment."

There were many things Bucky expected from this little trip. First, he knew he would be going to Brooklyn to visit his old haunts and maybe get a fantastic slice of pizza. Another was that he might find that Hydra had killed Katie, or taken her for experimentation. Another was that she had been actively trying to avoid him and moved away on purpose so he couldn't find her. She could have told him she was married again, or that she was pregnant, or that she was secretly the Red Skull. Anything would have been more believable than this. He circled the couch and sat next to her, a little more closely than he wanted. He sat gingerly as not to somehow hurt her incredibly delicate looking body.

"You wanted to die." He replied finally, staring at the wall opposite of them.

There was guilt painted across her expression. "As soon as I met you all I could think about was how to start treatments again. I was given a 10% success rate with chemo and surgery. I thought I was dying. That's why I gave you a chance; it's why I went out on my bike every day. But month after month, I just kept waking up. I just wouldn't die." Katie crumpled the striped hat and twisted it until it started popping at the seams. "All of my doctors are up here and I didn't want to tell you about it all. I was afraid you'd think it was too much to handle. But then you left."

She held up a hand to keep him from apologizing with a small smile. "My parents got me into this experimental radiation treatment, and," she knocked on her head twice. "So far so good."

"What are your chances?" Bucky asked quietly, blue eyes smoothing over the divots and curves of her exposed scalp.

Katie bit her lip. She didn't really want to tell him, but she had to. "4%, but it increases every day that I'm on this treatment. I'm stronger now than I was a few weeks ago if you'd believe that. It's a new type of radiation, and even though it's in the experimental stage it's working super well."

The heavy silence that lingered after her words was giving Katie anxiety. She wanted to smother herself with a pillow. She was so ashamed of herself. She wanted to tell everyone, but there never seemed to be a good time to give bad news. Now it was a little late to explain it all away. Especially for someone as tumultuous as Bucky. The sound of Jade's clacking nails across the floor alerted her to the fact that the dog was sitting right in front of him, head cocked. He gently pulled at one of her ears and her tongue lolled out happily. Even the dog missed Bucky. Katie hated all of this. There was such an awful shock wave that hurt so many of the ones she loved. Even her Army Ranger brother was afraid of leaving for his tour in a couple of days. He was afraid she'd die while he was gone.

"What's it called?" Bucky finally seemed to find the nerve to look Katie in the eye. The fear and anticipation was gone, replaced with anger. Katie narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"K² makes it, the specific drug is called 'Zagros'." Her head tilted very slightly at the way his eyes hardened into dark sapphires. "Why? You look upset."

_Great_. Bucky rocked his head back and closed his eyes. As if he didn't have enough to deal with. K2 was one of the many companies being investigated by S.H.I.E.L.D. for using their patients as science experiments. He didn't know much about the details; only that Natasha was worried about the effects. She told Steve that they were reminiscent of some Soviet travesty that occurred during the 70's. Something about normal people losing control, becoming puppets for the Soviet Union, just like Bucky once was. The entire idea of it was convoluted and confusing, but he knew it was bad.

Katie hated how Bucky looked at her after she explained everything. It was the exact reason why she never wanted to tell anyone. It was piteous sadness; as if she was some delicate flower that couldn't take care of herself. Okay, maybe _now_ she needed people to help her, but she was once tough and strong. She lived alone for a long time, just her and Jade. She endured some serious pain and heartache all on her own. She was an American airman who survived the training only to be removed from service for a disease that couldn't be cured. It was frustrating to find herself so weak after being strong for her whole life.

With his eyes squeezed tightly together, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Bucky blinked a few times as if something just dawned on him. He looked like he wanted to say something stupid, something like— "Stop taking it."

Pretty, lashless, green eyes narrowed at him. "Are you _insane_?"

"You don't know what you're—"

"—I'm being cured of a _terminal illness_." She interrupted, voice rasping. "I don't care if there are side effects because at the end of the day I'll still be breathing."

"That's not what-" Bucky growled in frustration, eyes rolled to the ceiling. He took another deep breath, just like his therapist told him to do when he was on the brink of losing his temper. It just gave him a few extra seconds to think about his words before speaking. He then explained evenly, "Katie. There are some people in this world who want to use people like you until you're just a body with no mind of your own."

Pale lips pursed, she glared at him. "My brother works for K², in the Zagros division specifically. He is the only reason I was able to get in on the study. My brother would never give me something to hurt me when all he wants to do its make me better."

How deeply threaded was she in the spider's web? Couldn't she see that this drug was killing her? Bucky knew her parents were involved with something nefarious, but he could tell her brothers were all but blind to their crimes. Maybe they really did think that they were doing the right thing. Was it possible to be that blind?

"I can't let them hurt you." he determined, eyes locked with hers.

The way she looked at him made him feel like the enemy.

"The radiation isn't what's hurting me, the cancer is. I've had my chest cracked open once before to remove tumors, but they keep coming back. This treatment is the only thing that's ever worked." Her voice wavered. She swallowed and shivered a little, teeth trying to chatter. "You don't have to deal with this with me. That's a big part of why I left the house to begin with." Katie wanted to shake him, to make him understand that this might be her only shot at survival. Survival that she didn't even _want_ until she met him. Until she learned her own self worth.

Since Bucky left several months ago, Katie had rediscovered herself. She found out that she liked very spicy food and going skydiving. There was even a time that she rode a dirt bike, but she went flying over the handles and decided it wasn't for her.

There were two ways to live life. You could roll over and let life happen, or you could grab life by the dick and make it do what you want. She preferred to make life happen. The first time she did this was when she let Bucky live with her. She knew he was dangerous. On a whim, she made the choice to sleep with him, thinking she might not get the chance to have crazy sex. She let herself fall in love fast, not dwelling on the hate she felt toward her ex. She didn't have time to spend it all on someone who wasn't there. It was more important to find happiness in the moment.

For the past few months Katie was working at a hospital in New York. She retrained in an intensive course that took a month. Her clinicals were nearly complete so she could become a surgical nurse. It was just bad luck when the cancer weakened her, forcing her into a wheelchair for the last week of the course. It affected her strength to the point where she had to quit her dream job only two days into it. Cancer was a major cockblock.

She wanted to prove to everyone that she deserved to live, that she was so much stronger than this disease. But she was too weak to smack Bucky upside the head and call him out on being so stupid. Stop taking your lifesaving drug? No way. Instead of giving him the 'what-for', she opted to pout up at him with shrugged shoulders. It always worked. The brittle resistance in his tight expression cracked as he closed those beautiful eyes and sighed, melting back into the couch.

Just to regain his attention, Katie pressed a cold hand to the back of his neck. He twitched and grabbed her hand to ease the sensation.

With a sad smile, he pulled her freezing hand around to his lips and held it there until the blood got flowing again. Bucky reached around her shoulders and gathered her close, paying exceptional attention as not to break her.

As they lay there in a calm silence, Bucky felt the world he built from the ground up over the past six months cracking around the edges. The person who took him in at one of the lowest parts of his life was part of Hydra. Whether she knew it or not, she was now a part of the problem. As was her entire family. He didn't know what to do. They had made her dependent on their medication. Even if it was killing the tumors, was it worth the potential side effects? Now all he could do was wait and see if Hydra would kill her, or make her their slave.

Katie fell fast asleep under his arm, Jade rested her head on his knee, and everything was back to normal. Bucky kissed the top of her head with a small grimace. He's never kissed a bald head before, it was a little weird. He heard a door creak open then close as a few sets of feel re-entered the main room of the small apartment. Bucky rested his cheek against Katie's head. It fit perfectly. Just having her there made him feel complete for the first time since he left her alone in that house. Her breaths were small and quiet.

Someone crouched down in front of him, laying a hand on Jade's back. Bucky lifted his eyes to find Steve, his own gaze shifting between Katie and him.

How the Hell was he going to explain all of this to Steve?

 


	9. But, We Had A Date...

Talking to Bucky about her treatment was like trying to dance across a trail of razor blades. Especially when it came to the life saving drug she was currently hooked up to. Bucky _hated_ being in that chair next to her. He hated hospitals. He hated doctors. He hated everything about the medical field. She was lucky he loved her enough to endure it all with her, even if it was just for a week.

When the radiologist walked through the room to connect the IV of clear fluids to her arm, Katie could see the muscles of Bucky's jaw clench. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Bucky was completely and utterly terrified. Terrified that this was some kind of ruse to catch him and keep him here for testing, or, that these drugs were going to turn his girl into a mindless zombie and he'd be forced to end her life.

Time and time again Katie had to remind him that she had a fully functioning brain and that this decision was hers. Even after Steve sat her down and explained everything about Hydra, she still chose to go through with it. Steve let her in on all the horrible things that happened to Bucky while he was programmed for their uses as the Winter Soldier. After their little sit down, Katie read up everything she could find about Hydra in its Wikipedia form. She knew _why_ Bucky was so angry and scared. He wanted to kill every last Hydra operative. But Katie couldn't let him do that, especially after she realized that her brothers, and parents, were probably deeply involved in the organization. She hadn't been indoctrinated the way others had, neither had her older brother. Miles appeared completely oblivious to it all as he prepared for his next tour in Afghanistan.

Kyle was under the impression that he was a sales representative for a well-established medical company and that he was just helping his little sister. Her parents were heading the Eastern hub of Hydra's medical influence. They also thought that they were helping humanity cure one of the world's most devastating diseases.

Bucky went to each and every appointment that week. All of this was because her parents sold their soul to the devil in exchange for their daughter's life. He was convinced that the doctors would do something wrong and accidentally kill her. He watched their motions like an overly protective lion over his cub. One of Hydra's goals was to eliminate unworthy humans. They were using people like Katie as test subjects. In this case, for whatever reason, she was actually responding to the experimental treatment.

For the first time in his life, Bucky was hesitant to stop Hydra, or, at least this experiment. Even though he knew deep in his heart that he needed to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, there was only one on his mind. The girl with the black striped beanie who held his hand tightly as the nurse stuck her arm with a needle. Pain blossomed in his heart as she grew more, and more dead to the world. Morphine kept her from feeling the pain of the chemical as it flooded her body.

If his team stopped Hydra's labs before her treatment was completed, Katie would die. There was zero chance of recovery for her angio-blah-blah-blah. It would spread until she was nothing more than a writhing shell of a person, then die, miserably.

Katie was always sick after her treatments. Kyle, her older brother, invited them to stay, just so long as Bucky didn't go anywhere near Katie's room when she was sleeping. And, as long as Steve stayed with them. Kyle had every bit of Captain America paraphernalia in existence, including a 'Bucky Barnes' poster with his birth and 'death' dates. Steve was staying in the guest bedroom while Bucky stayed up every night to hold Katie on the bathroom floor while she vomited her body weight in fluids. He generally slept for an hour or two on the couch before Steve woke him up so they could run.

At one point during their short one-week stay, Katie was weakened to the point where she could no longer stand. Maybe the drugs were curing the cancer but they were just killing her anyway.

The oncologist told her that if she quit now, her heart would stop within a week.

Bucky hated bringing her there. It was so depressing. They didn't have much more time together before he left for Russia. So, on Friday, just two days before he was set to leave, Bucky went so far as driving past the hospital and taking her to the Brooklyn Bridge. She argued with him the whole way, but she was so weak that when she pushed him that her whole body trembled from the effort.

Awe filled her childlike expression when they watched the sun rise from the bridge.

That day was a victory in his eyes.

He took her to see the store that bought the building where he and Steve grew up. He had to begrudgingly admit that the deli on the first floor had some damn good prosciutto. And, although she couldn't eat much, Katie agreed with a little dance when he tore off a small piece for her.

He managed to make her laugh when he lifted a car to help a couple of kids get their baseball, then again when he carried her to the edge of the Hudson to skip rocks. She had never skipped a rock before so he made it his goal to help her do it. They sat on a broad, flat rock right by the edge. The murky scent of stagnant, river water wafted from the surface. Bucky sat behind Katie so she wouldn't fall back or feel weak. Katie appreciated his preemptive thinking; she hated to ask for help. It was like admitting she was broken. A small, flat rock appeared in her palm. Bucky arranged her fingers around it, holding her hand within his own. He took her hand and flicked it forward, fast. The rock released, skipping three times across the glassy black water before sinking. Pale lips pulled into a bright smile that made Bucky's heart sing. He repeated the process with progressively larger rocks, even when she tried to escape his grip, until Katie was coughing from the effort of laughing.

Watching the early afternoon sun reflected on the water, her smile twitched at the corners, then dropped entirely. She went very still. So still that Bucky placed his head between her shoulder and ear to make sure she was all right, leaning his chin into the hollow between her collarbone and throat. Eyes wide and rolling without direction or purpose, Katie's breaths became punctuated with small sobs.

"Buck." Her heart pounded as her throat tightened with fear. "I can't see."

...

Slowly, over the course of three hours in the ER, Katie regained her sight. The prognoses was bad, Katie knew this. They didn't need a CT scan to tell her there were tumors in her brain. It was a true death sentence. She was happy that the doctor spoke in massive words so Bucky couldn't understand. She didn't lie to him, but she also wasn't perfectly forthcoming. It's not like the doctor actually told her she had tumors, she had refused the scan.

The younger doctor left the room. Bucky was sitting on a chair next to the hospital bed, squeezing her hand a little too tightly. Blue eyes begged her to explain what was happening.

"The doctor thinks it's because I've missed two treatments this week." Although Katie didn't mean for it to come off as an accusation, Bucky obviously took it as one. "It's not your fault. I'd rather spend my time laughing than high on morphine."

...

"Ugh, this song is _so_ bad."

The music grew incrementally louder. Katie danced, badly, from her wheelchair on Saturday. It was funny how she knew every word to a song she claimed to hate.

It was also funny that Kyle wouldn't admit that he was an alcoholic.

"Why do you turn bad songs up, and good songs down?" Kyle asked smilingly, taking a swig of wine. The man was tanked and it was only noon.

Katie rolled her eyes poignantly at her big brother from the opposite side of the balcony. "Only bad songs are good to dance to."

"Not true." Bucky interjected as he scrubbed his hair with a hand towel. "The best songs should be good for dancing, too."

"Back in your day, music was made my smashing rocks together, so you have no room to judge." Bucky raised a brow at Katie who grinned like a fool.

The four of them were sprawled about the balcony in different states of relaxation. Everyone was bundled up for the cool weather. For October it was really freezing. Kyle was laying far enough back in his chair that his butt was falling off the seat, a scarf wrapped around his shaved head. Bucky was leaning in through the open glass door, freshly showered, scrubbing his hair with a white hand towel. And Steve was learning how Bluetooth signals worked from Katie as she danced in her wheelchair, pointing from his phone to the iHome. Steve twitched to catch the chair when she tried to pop a wheelie, she gave a mocking scowl and rolled to the door; Bucky bowed out of the way and followed her with his eyes.

Pulling an IV bag from a low pantry, Jade licked her face. She laughed, pushed the big black animal away. Bucky's narrowed gaze at the clear fluid didn't escape anyone's notice as he tried to read the small letters on the side. "What's that, Kate?"

Kyle raised a brow at him sardonically. "What? A little heroin never hurt anyone."

"Oh, _please_. Meth is my drug of choice anyway." Katie quipped as she opened another low cabinet.

Katie rolled back out to her male companions with the plastic bag laid across her lap, one hand holding it secure as she bounced over the small step back onto the balcony. Both Steve and Bucky glanced from each other, to the needle in Katie's closed hand. Light flashed on Steve's phone, he shared a secretive look with Bucky, and then strode into the apartment. The small click of the front door was quiet enough to ignore.

Katie cleaned the left subcubital fossa, er, the inside of her elbow before sticking the butterfly needle through her skin, taping it down immediately to stop the slight blood.

"What is that?" Bucky asked again without a hint of humor this time. He could see the lie brewing behind her slight smirk, so he preempted it by clarifying: "What is it, _really_."

She rolled her eyes. "Just water. Drinking has been too hard today."

Bucky pursed his lips thoughtfully, nodding a little.

"Where's Steve?" Kyle asked with a giddy grin, finally looking up from his phone.

There was no telling what Steve was currently up to, but Bucky had the sinking suspicion he wasn't going to like it.

...

Less than an hour later, Bucky took Katie out to a diner around the corner. She could only walk about halfway there on her own. For the rest of their walk he placed an arm around her waist so she wouldn't feel quite so weak. Really, her feet only barely touched the ground, but it made her feel stronger, and therefore about a thousand times happier.

"I haven't walked that far in _months_. Thanks, Buck." She couldn't stop smiling, not since she found out that Bucky and Steve were in NYC. Not since she found out that Bucky had _actually_ received some treatment for his PTSD. Not since waking up with him sitting on the corner of her bed each morning. Not since she fell asleep in his arms. She could feel his heart beat against her cheek, reminding her again and again that he was perfect.

Even with his many negative qualities, Bucky was still the most positive light in her life. Especially recently. Along with her treatments, Katie was told she had to get surgery. In three weeks, the 12th of November, she was having her chest cracked like a walnut all over again. This time they were replacing her aorta and cutting out the metastasized tissue. Of course, she had to be on radiation for a certain period of time to condense the tissue before going in with a scalpel and chopping her heart into sashimi. This didn't even begin to address the potentially fatal tumor in her occipital lobe. The whole concept was terrifying, but she knew that with Bucky here she could conquer all of this. She knew he was only going to be there for another day, but that didn't matter.

A handsome super soldier watched her happy expressions as she read the menu, tapping her toes to the ground rhythmically. It was different seeing her without eyebrows and eyelashes. The hair he could live without, but he never realized how strange a person could look without something as basic as eyelashes.

It gave him what he learned was called "anxiety".

The girl across the table looked incredibly tiny against bright red cushioning in their booth. It made him wonder why he was doing this to himself. He was only letting himself love her to watch her die. Katie refused to admit that she was getting worse. But Bucky wasn't as dumb as she seemed to think.

The waitress came to take their orders.

"What can I get for ya?" The girl with dark black hair snapped her gum, her voice gravelly and tired.

"Just coffee for now."

The girl looked up once, then again, quickly, with a start. Bucky burrowed his face in the menu to avoid the way her eyes were drawn to the side of his face. She smiled sweetly. "It's so nice of you to take one of them out with you, it good to see someone still cares."

The waitress didn't let her smile waver, not once looking to the other side of the table. Bucky lowered the menu, slowly glancing from the top of Kate's lowered head, back to the dark haired girl, a little confused.

A cough resounded from the other side of the table. The waitress turned her head to look at Katie, who was smiling up at her with sweet venom.

"Yeah, I'm sick, not deaf, sweetheart. That coffee would be _great_ right about now." She winked at the girl who spun around and hid behind the counter so fast that Bucky couldn't help but snort a laugh.

"And you say _I'm_ the jealous one?"

Katie smiled. "When I'm pretty again I won't have to be jealous. It's not my fault you're way hotter."

His blue eyes followed the lines of her face. "You're still pretty, just different." Light pink blush dusted her cheeks; she bit her lips together to stifle a smile.

That deadly, saccharine smile came back when a different waitress set down their coffee. Katie appeared pleased with the results.

"So, what did you want to talk about? Sounded kind of urgent." Katie sipped her coffee black, then grimaced and stuck out her tongue. After the black liquid was almost white with milk and sugar she smiled and hummed pleasantly.

Bucky sighed deeply, reminding himself that this was only temporary. How was he going to tell her? Outright was probably the best approach...

"I have to leave in two hours."

There wasn't even a hint of comprehension in her eyes, as if he hadn't even spoken as her eyes jumped back to the menu in her hands. "Were you planning to get the All American Combo, or the All Star Special? Both look awesome, but I don't know if you're hungry enough for all that."

This was one of her worst personality faults. "Kate. This is important."

"No. Actually, it's not." She gave a small, sheepish smile across the table, reaching out for one of his hands, rubbing the side of his thumb gently. Those green eyes bounced away from his for just a second then, when she found the right words, she said, "I'm getting surgery in a couple of weeks. I probably wont live for much longer. So, instead of dwelling over something shitty I'm going to enjoy whatever time I have here with you because I might not get the chance again."

The explanation was crushing, not to mention distracting. How was he supposed to go to Russia with Katie's eminent death on his mind?

So, after they sucked down two cups of coffee, Katie drew up a game plan. She was going to make sure that they had a good time for their last two hours, whether Bucky wanted to or not.

Bucky had to spend the whole time faking smiles and forcing laughs when all he wanted was to cry. They went to Coney Island, and the aquarium. They made fish faces at each other, a different one for each fish. Katie made him go on every ride they had time for, which was three. They fought over who would win in a paintball fight, which was settled when Bucky shot her with a water gun directly in the face when he was supposed to be aiming at a clown's mouth. She won the game, but he won the war.

Between stolen glances and superficial grins, Katie spoke endlessly. She looked at him for a long time when they were walking back out to the road.

"What?" He smirked, knowing exactly what she was thinking.

Without needing to smile, she smoothed a hand over his chest. "I'm going to miss you."

Those words were not easy to say, nor easy to hear. But if she didn't say them now, she feared she'd never get the chance.

A yellow taxi took them to Stark Tower. Although Katie tried to fight him, Bucky paid for the cab so she would have a ride back to her apartment. He called Miles to make sure she would have someone to help her get into the apartment. Again, Katie fought with him tooth and nail. She stood tall against the closed cab door behind her. Katie wasn't a terribly short woman; she simply appeared small for her height. Even with a bald head and dark circles under her eyes, Katie was somehow pretty. Arms folded, lips pursed, she appeared to finally realize that this was it. They might really never see each other again. Her chin rippled, her throat tightened.

There were no thoughts as Bucky leaned his forearm above her head against the cab door. Her eyes grew wider, amorously. Questioningly. For once, she was the one asking for permission, and Bucky was the one making demands. Smiling, Bucky pressed his lips to her forehead, breathing in to remember the way she smelled. Like melons. The edge of his lower lip danced across her skin, around her brow ridge and over her nose before hovering just above her lips. That magic, that magnet's pull, was there, as it always way since the very first day that they met.

For the last time, at least for a while, Bucky kissed her.

It was cataclysmic. The feeling of being created and torn apart all at once. Gently as he could, he held her face; her weak little hands gripped his shirt as tightly as they could. It wasn't until he pulled away to look at her for the last time that he realized she was crying. With a soft thumb, he brushed the tears away. Neither had to say the words they wanted to say, they were understood.

With the taste of his lips on hers, Katie lowered herself into the back seat of the cab and waved gently at Bucky through the window. He smiled with a little salute, and then disappeared into the building where Steve waited just inside of the glass door.

...

"You're awfully quiet."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"You know that's not true."

Bucky stared out the window, not once looking at Steve, Natasha, or Sam. Refusing to answer Steve.

"C'mon," Bucky could feel Steve's eyes on the side of his face as the clouds whipped past at the speed of sound. "We can't just go in there and kill every living soul. We need a plan."

Natasha's smooth, endlessly sarcastic voice came next from across the plane. "What's the matter Soldier? Lady problems?"

Steve shot Natasha a " _seriously_?" look.

The Russian woman's eyebrows rose high before mouthing, ' _really_?'

Steve glanced at Bucky to make sure he wasn't looking then quirked a sad smile that said, ' _yeah_ '.

Sam looked like he might be praying the way his eyes rolled to the plane's ceiling at this revelation. Natasha's lips parted in disbelief, her bows low. She was upset not to have noticed anything strange about the Winter Soldier. Typically, she could tell when someone was upset before they even realized. ' _Who?_ ' She mouthed, again.

Steve didn't answer so she took it upon herself to ask. She thought about calling him by name, but Natasha didn't like using "Bucky" to describe the Winter Soldier. It never really fit. Probably because the bullet holes in her side and shoulder screamed whenever she was near him. It was a major issue during training. Judging by the guarded way he held himself during the meeting earlier, she could assume Hydra, in some way, harmed the mystery girl in question. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

The way his eyes slid to hers made Natasha's heart stop. Steel blue eyes brought her back to those times when he was too dangerous for the public. So dangerous that he needed to be locked away for long period of time. Her blood ran cold when he looked at her like that. His whole being embodied the Winter Soldier when he was angry, even with his new S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform and haircut.

She wasn't sure if it was a good idea to bring him with them on this mission. Hydra screwed him up once, couldn't they do it again? It didn't help that he was wound up like a jack in the box ready to explode. Natasha changed the subject instantly upon receiving that frightening look. "Where have you guys been the past few weeks, I was starting to think you chickened out."

Bucky's eyes didn't deviate from Natasha's and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't make herself look away either.

"We were in New York with a friend." Steve answered honestly, but obviously dancing around the real question because he couldn't lie worth squat.

Tasha smirked, knowing Steve was putty in her hand. "Cool, did you try out that little Asian place on 108th?"

They didn't know that Natasha had tracked Steve's metro card. She knew everywhere they'd been, she just wanted to see what emotions were associated with their travels. If there really was a girl in the Soldier's life, Tasha needed to make sure she didn't interfere with their team. Above all else, their ability to work together flawlessly was the forefront of her mind. It was part of why she was always trying to hook Steve up with someone. Maybe if he got laid he'd stop looking at her like the embodiment of sex.

Steve shook his head, begging her to stop prying. She rolled her eyes as soon as the Winter Soldiers finally moved his hard gaze from her face, back to the window. She'd never seen him so wound up before, even when he was an assassin. Edginess was not an honorable trait among spies and assassins. They were meant to stay calm in all situations. In this situation, the Soldier was allowing his emotions to get the better of him. Or was he? The way he looked now sort of reminded her of a time when he lacked all emotion. The mission at hand was the only thing that mattered. Maybe, just maybe, this was a good thing. Curiosity was one of Natasha's few flaws; she couldn't keep from wondering what possibly happened. Even Steve appeared upset. Whatever was bothering two of her teammates was going to have to end.

"Bucky?"

His head snapped in her direction. It was well known that they didn't get along terribly well, it was partially because he shot her once or twice under the influence of Hydra. Partially because she refused to call him by his real name. It was a toss up.

A sympathetic smile reached her eyes as she touched a finger to the arrow pendant on her necklace. "I really do hope she's okay."

* * *


	10. Murder Is Bad, Mmkay?

In a perfect world, Bucky would have stayed with Katie until that last, hitching breath. He would have held her hand and watched that brilliant light fall from her eyes, just so she could feel safe, maybe even a little happy, in those final, fleeting moments. But he couldn't do that. S.H.I.E.L.D. needed him, and he needed a distraction. A distraction like: air speed, velocity, air density, range...

The bolt shot back, past his ear. Air crackled around the bullet as it ripped through a guard's eye, exiting the back of his skull, dropping him instantly. Instinctively, Bucky mechanically reloaded the mag and reset the gun's sights. Each motion was measured and sure, just as expected from the Winter Soldier.

Out here, killing the unified forces of Hydra, Bucky was entirely focused. He was unable to think about anything aside from the potential threats to his team. Wintery blue eyes were sharp and accurate in their measurements every time, that was why he was entrusted to take out the guards out in front of the mountainous base.

Bucky touched his earpiece. "Tango Charlie down."

"Ten-four. Tango Beta and Whiskey down." A rushed woman's voice caused his earpiece to squeal. Bucky winced and held the side of his head to rub away the pain.

"Copy. Advance to Screaming Eagle." Bucky looked up through black goggles and motioned subtly with his hand to someone on the ground. Natasha got to work on the touch pad to open the first iron door. "Nice ass."

"Заткнись, мудак." Natasha threw up her middle finger without looking for his position.

"Frosty, Spider. Quiet on the mic." Steve's voice was chipped and metallic through the radio. Steve was their moderating mother.

Grey, matte metal emblazoned with a bright red squid-looking symbol creaked and groaned as it lifted. Natasha flipped behind a wall to hide from any incoming forces. Five black masked combatants charged out to search the area, guns hoisted high, looking for enemies in the trees. Bucky stayed quiet, finger poised on the trigger of his .50 cal, awaiting orders. Up here he had the perfect view of the scene, he could pick off every one of them without ever being detected. Up here he had little time to think about the phone call he expected later tonight. Or so he told himself. Steve, being the responsible adult he was, managed to get Kyle _and_ Miles' phone numbers before they left the city, something Bucky hadn't thought of. He, mindlessly, thought that Katie would be able to give him that call. Unfortunately, though he refused to consider the option, she could very easily die today.

At 0700 Katie was put under anesthesia for her valve replacement, Kyle was the one to call and let Steve know. Of _course_ , he called Steve rather than the person who _really_ needed to know. But that was beside the point. He was just glad to know some kind of contact was made and that, at least for the next 10 hours, he had nothing to worry about aside from the mission at hand. Worrying himself sick wouldn't keep her alive, but, ending another Hydra base camp would absolutely save the lives of millions.

Grunts and cries erupted below. Bucky rolled his eyes, shaking his head a little.

A star spangled jackass jumped from above the door and kicked the crap out of all but one Hydra operative. Instead of fighting him, Steve was talking, hands extended before him. Steve had this habit of trying to reason with the enemy, he was too _good_ for missions like this. Steve was Bucky's incredibly humane little brother. It was a habit that routinely got Steve into trouble.

Bucky tilted his head slightly to look through the scope and sent a bullet through the agent's head, violently throwing his corpse to the ground.

Steve scowled up at him disapprovingly. Bucky knew Steve couldn't see his giant grin, so he gave a thumbs up instead. A red haired woman in an incredibly tight cat suit rushed around the corner into the building. Natasha had her earpiece off, so Bucky couldn't make fun of her for laying low during the fight. Sam Wilson, code name: Falcon, was off-site with his wings ready in case of an emergency evacuation.

Snow dotted his light grey camouflaged, high-power, sniper rifle. It was cold, not that Bucky minded. The slowly increasing snow only helped to mask their arrival. Natasha complained the whole time and Bucky could see Steve clench and unclench his hands to keep the blood flow going as they wandered through those frozen metal halls, crouched with their guns poised and ready. Steve had his shield up in front of them, ready to defend his team. Natasha was wedged between the men; she was still recovering from a wound she received during their last mission.

Currently, they were in northern Mongolia on the very edge of Russia's southern boarder. Both Natasha and Bucky were uncomfortable with going into their motherland and facing Vladimir Putin, so they came in through China, causing mayhem and ruining Hydra operations as they went. This was the fourth base in the past month that they infiltrated. Natasha and Bucky devastated the insides and took no prisoners, much to Steve's dismay. At each base there was always that _one_ idiot. Natasha was the expert at finding those weak spirits and digging into their soft little minds. This was how they mined most of their information, through weak willed morons.

Visually, the base was on par with Bucky's frozen cell. Cold, metal walls surrounded the three of them on all sides as they infiltrated a laboratory. There were a half dozen men and women throwing test tubes into an incinerator, fluttering around like frenzied birds. Apparently they were warned of their arrival. Bullets ricocheted against every surface, test tubes filled with fluid exploded, shattering against the floor. Their boots crunched across the chaotic mess, encroaching on the frantic workers. Two men had guns, but Natasha made quick work of their unskilled aim, shooting them both through their hands with a mocking smirk.

"Bad boys." She wagged a finger at the cowering group. "Where is your commander?" They looked at one another with wide eyes. Lab rats were always the first to crack. Most of them were under the impression that they were just working for some medical facility; not an evil, war mongering super conglomerate. One woman's face was entirely white. Then Natasha realized the issue. "Где командир?"

The one woman stammered, voice cracking fearfully at the handgun aimed at her right eye. "Bертолетная площадка!"

"Shit." Bucky muttered, turning to Steve, who looked between his two team mates, incredibly confused. Bucky translated, "The base commander is at the helipad."

They started running. There was a loud murmur of chopper blades vibrating through the halls. They dove through double doors; Natasha struggled to keep up with the two super soldiers, who decided to turn it into a race.

Double doors opened to a broad black expanse being rapidly overtaken by large, wet snowflakes. Bucky pulled one of the higher caliber weapons from over his shoulder and knelt for better support. Natasha and Steve went ahead to cut off the commander as he ran to the black helicopter, holding a coat over his head to keep the snow at bay.

Bucky closed one eye and dropped his goggles over his eyes, shrugging a scarf up over his ears to muffle the sound. He squeezed the heavy trigger. A mortar round whistled through the air and destroyed one of the humming blades, sending it whirling across the blacktop, knocking the massive black machine onto its side.

Natasha kicked the older man in his deep olive green uniform into the snow. Steve pressed his foot to his chest. The commander squirmed until he saw Tasha's gun aimed at his head.

"No English." He spluttered, heavily accented.

"Funny he says he can't speak English, in English." Bucky commented to Steve with a smirk as he ambled through the wreckage to his comrades. Natasha began grilling him in Russian.

The interaction went something like this: "Hello kind sir, please, please, pretty please tell me where the other bases are located?"

The commander's answer was something along the lines of: "Sure I'd love to, just let me get my address book."

Not really, that's just how Bucky translated it for Steve. Most of the time Bucky tried to stay far away from interrogations. He lacked the finesse and patience to deal with people who refused to answer his questions. They dragged the old man inside the building and out of the snow. Their invasion would become pointless if he died. They found his gilded office positioned above the helipad and tied him down with anything they could find.

The moon sunk low and the sky was beginning to lighten. Ten hours, at lease, had passed. Bucky wanted to end this quickly so he could worry about something entirely unrelated to this mission. Steve and Bucky exchanged a knowing look.

"Hello?"

A small voice came through the door. A beautiful redhead darted from sight. Steve went after her. Bucky ripped a handgun from his side and aimed it at the commander's balls. Natasha spoke harshly in Russian to the man. He refused to speak.

After a long moment, Steve returned, dragging an unconscious woman behind him.

At the sight, the commander shouted, "Shelby!"

Bucky couldn't help but glare at the woman, then the older man, anger bubbling like fire in his veins. Why was it he couldn't even _work_ without thinking about that damn girl?

Bucky held the muzzle of his gun to the man's head and jerked his chin up at Steve to get his attention. "She knows the locations, too. Let's take them back to HQ."

Exchanging a quick, suspicious, glance between them, Natasha and Steve agreed.

...

The glass between them was thick. Kyle was washing his hands in the surgeon's sink as he watched. There was only a little while left in the operation, they were already closing, stitching sutures and jamming staples into her sternum. It was hard to imagine that just this morning it was his little sister on that table. Now, he wasn't sure _what_ that creature was. Whatever it was, it wasn't human. Not anymore.

Bloody blue towels were being tossed into bright yellow biohazard bags. IV bags, too. He would be the one to remove those and send them to Spain. The whole process made Kyle's stomach turn. There were tons of people who had this procedure done; he watched this surgical implant thousands of times in the past. He even assisted a few times, getting his hands nice and bloody. The kind of blood that no one knows how to wash off, at least, that's how it felt. Now that it was his baby sister under the knife, he couldn't squeeze that awful guilt out of his mind. He was the reason this to happened to so many people before. So many people were about to suffer, and too much of that weight was on Kyle's shoulders.

The surgeon pushed through the door, slipping off bloody white gloves with a snapping sound. "Hey there, Estrada. Ready for Spain?"

Ah, right. _Spain_. Kyle forgot about their little "trip". He was going with fifteen new doctors to show them how to install the microchip into their patients' brains. Before, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to show his worth to the company of his dreams. Now, it was the last thing on earth he wanted to do. This chip was in development for the last forty-five years, but it was only perfected a couple of months ago. That was why he insisted that they let Kate onto their experimental list.

"Yeah, just have to make sure Katie will be okay living alone before I can go."

The doctor deadpanned as he watched the nurses roll his patient from the operating room. He kept his lips buttoned until the door settled closed.

"You," he removed his green mask and flicked it into the garbage. "Need to get your priorities in order. Your little sister is gone. There is still a lot of work to be done and you are a key player."

That was the problem. Kyle needed to make sure that the implant was done properly. At rest, the microchip wasn't supposed to mess with her daily life. It was what would happen once it was activated that really worried him.

"She's not gone, she's just over in recovery." Kyle stated, his voice even and sure. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, the doctor, or himself.

The surgeon looked at Kyle pathetically. "You're one thick headed son of a bitch."

A loud ringing resounded from Kyle's pocket. "Wild Blue Yonder" was the ringtone. His heart dropped to his stomach leaving his fingers and toes freezing cold. He pressed the button on the side of his phone, silencing the tone without looking at the name. He wasn't ready to confront what waited on the other end of that call.

It wasn't until later, while he was looking over his little sister's head, covered in gauze, that he realized what a terrible mistake he made. Maybe she would live, actually, she would _definitely_ live. She would be stronger, healthier, than ever. The problem was that she wouldn't _know_ she was alive half of the time. Nothing good would ever happen to her. She would wake up an intrinsically different person. Kyle looked over to the screen next to her bed. Her vitals were getting stronger by the minute.

The phone started ringing again. Ky pulled it out of his pocket. "Captain America" appeared on the front screen. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat against the windowsill, letting the hand grasping his phone fall by the wayside. He let the ringer go on and on and on... He wasn't sure what to say quite yet. Mom and Dad told him to tell her friends that Katie died on the operating table. Did Bucky count as a 'friend'? No... right? Well, he _was_ a friend, definitely not just some guy she met on the street. He had a lot invested in her, and vice versa. What would happen if he told Kate that Bucky died, not the other way around? There was too much to consider. Surely they would all hate him after this. Especially Steve, and that really sucked to think about.

What if Captain effing America came and killed him for what he did? How was it that he was the new enemy of his idol?

Kyle always thought that he was ahead of the game. He was smarter than the others; he wasn't going to be the reason people died. In just a few months, he was going to be the cause of exactly that: death. Death and destruction. He, along with the dozens of doctors implanting these microchips every single day, was going to be held responsible for the deaths of innocent people across the globe.

K2 was not just some great company. Kyle had the wool pulled from his eyes a few weeks ago when Katie was on the phone with her (boyfriend?) friend, Bucky Barnes. The conversation was brief and they was a lot of: 'hello? I can't hear- you're breaking- ugh, forget it'. Nothing specific was said, they weren't allowed to talk about much in detail. Katie laughed a bunch, more than Kyle heard in a very long time.

What made him curious was when Katie commented on the muggy weather in Dubai. That was the location of K2's headquarters. He also knew that there was a meeting happening at that very moment, he'd been invited but opted to stay back and take care of Katie. When Kyle called headquarters, he got a busy signal from every single contact number. That's over thirty different numbers.

Mom and Dad let him know about an hour later that their business headquarters was being moved to Spain. When Kyle asked why, they told him that terrorists had destroyed all of their work and killed everyone in the building.

Learning that the company he worked for the last decade was a part of Hydra really bothered Kyle. All of this time he thought he was helping people. Especially sick patients like his little sister.

Katie groaned in her bed, not opening her deeply bruised eyes. Her eyes squeezed together tightly, wrinkling her hairless brow to press a painful headache away. "Answer your damn phone."

Kyle allowed himself a soft smile. That _would_ be the first thing Kate said after a ten-hour surgery. "How you feelin', brat?"

She tried to laugh but it came out more like a breathy hum. "High as balls."

Kyle could believe that. She was heavily medicated. She had her heart removed then put back into place and parts of her spine were removed, replaced with fake bone. There was a small tumor removed from behind her left eye and another from the back of her brain. She was going to be in a lot of pain for a long time. It bothered him that he now had to leave, go to Spain, do some evil shit for his parents, and leave her here alone to care for herself.

It was good that she was alive, _right_? That was the whole point: to save her life.

Kyle let out a small breath and sat in the chair next to her bed. She was asleep again, her heart beating rhythmically, pumping more strongly than it had in years. Dropping his head to his hands, propping his elbows against his knees, Kyle decided that life was a difficult thing to define, especially in this case.

...

After a few days of run of the mill torture, Bucky was on the verge of breaking every bone in both prisoners' bodies. Shelby was a grade-A bitch. Though, he had to admit, she was a good soldier. Neither agent spoke a word since they were reunited.

Then, Natasha came up with a brilliantly cruel plan...

" _No_!"

The commander quieted his body language quickly. Natasha smirked and eyed Steve who stood back, concern shining through his every motion. The redhead left the room through a side door entering the cell next door. Lifting the shade of the one-way window separating the prisoners' cells, she waved, tapping her earpiece as she placed a hand on the shoulder of a beat up looking chestnut haired woman.

"She your fuck buddy?" Her voice came though speakers inside of the commander's cell. His eyes flashed. "Oh," Natasha circled the girl's chair, a knife dragging gently over her scalp. "She's your daughter."

Bucky and Sam had to watch it all through another one-way window, he could see everything from a side view. The team were in a London bunker outfitted for this specific purpose. Every ray of light, every piece of weaponry decorating the walls, they all had a purpose. This was a place created for intimidation. Too bad it wasn't working on either one of their prisoners.

"I will cut each of her toes off until you tell us where to find the head of operations." Natasha tore off one of her dilapidated shoes and jabbed the knife into her foot, dragging it through the sole, a jagged line of deep black blood pouring through the wound. The younger redhead screamed, the sound piercing the metal walls separating them, cutting the air like a knife. Even Bucky flinched at Natasha's callous way of going about all of this.

"Leave her out of this!" The commander shouted. Steve just stared at Natasha, willing her to stop.

Another toe was severed and toppled to the ground. The agonized girl threw her head back with another choked screech. Blood poured from the eviscerated appendage onto the floor. Natasha brought the clippers to the girls face, tangling her fingers through her hair, jerking head back roughly. The metal touched the girls face, trailing a line of blood from her eye to the edge of her jaw, the crisp edge of the incision bled profusely. She was beginning to shake from shock. "A name!"

"Forscythe!" All eyes were suddenly on the commander as he folded over in his chair, gripping the table's edge. Though his voice trembled, it was loud and sure. "Peter Forscythe is head of Zagros. Please, let her go."

Natasha walked back into the room. Bucky pressed a button, changing the anatomy of the interrogation room. The commander paled. The one-way mirror was just a screen. Shelby was perfectly fine, staring angrily at the wall with tight lips. Instead of actually torturing the girl Steve came up with this, far more humane, option. Amazingly, it worked.

Forscythe was in charge? Two deep breaths. Three _more_ deep breaths. Breathing wasn't helping, so screw it. It took everything in him not to hit something, or someone.

Steve came up behind Bucky and coughed quietly to get his attention, he jumped a little at the interruption of his anger.

"Looks like we have to pay your girl another visit." He started to say, but the look on Bucky's face told him to shut the hell up.

"She doesn't know anything, trust me I tried."

"Nat might be able to pick up on something you missed. Maybe there's something that even Kate doesn't know she knows... you know?"

Bucky laughed a little, sadly, and leaned back against the one-way window, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Did Kyle call back yet?"

Steve rolled a chair over from across the room to sit near Bucky with this expression that answered the question for him. "Sorry, Buck. I'm sure everything's fine. It's a lot of work to take care of someone after a surgery like that. Ky seemed to think it was pretty routine stuff for the cardiologist on board."

These words were no comfort to Bucky. Nothing would make him feel better until he could physically see Katie instead of receiving a random phone call from time to time. Hearing her voice was great, but it wasn't the same. There was something about being in the same room as her that brought him real peace. Every day that he spent killing strangers and tearing apart Hydra facilities, Bucky felt himself slip further and further into the Winter Soldier. After these past few months, he needed a little time to relax and become human again.

* * *


	11. That One Time Bucky Drank A Liquor Store

LaGuardia Airport was one of the worst places on earth. Not only did it seem like it was run by a nine year old, but it was also the slowest possible place to land. Over the city, they circled. Again, and Again, until finally, thirty minutes after their official landing time, they began their final descent. At least the city was pretty from above. Bucky could look down at those buildings for hours. Since it was night, the ground was lit like stars. Every window, every streetlight, they all gave merit to the illusion. Even the way they reflected off of the Hudson blurred the line between high risers and sky.

After getting through customs with some sanity left in their bodies, Steve, Bucky and Natasha broke off from Sam. He said something about having to do human things, like sleep, unlike them.

"So, hotel?" Natsha yawned against the window, using her fist to muffle the sound as she curled up.

"No," Bucky leaned foreword to give the cabbie instructions. "Get on 278, East."

"Where to?" The older, Middle Eastern man asked.

"Columbia Presbyterian. Steve, what time is it?" Bucky answered before the man could finish asking.

Steve was wearing his worn, brown leather jacket. He looked almost as tired as Natasha. But he couldn't hold his friend's anxiety against him. They were away for four months. Not once did they receive news on Katie. Bucky didn't let this affect him until late in the game, it wasn't until they landed that he became jittery. He looked at his watch. "Ten to ten."

"Damn." Bucky cursed and sat back into the old, bouncy cab seat. Steve was giving him a side eye from the front seat, so Bucky answered before he could ask. "Visiting hours end at ten."

Steve just nodded and looked over at the cabbie who accelerated with a jolly little grin as he maneuvered around every other car on the road.

...

"I'm sorry sir but we don't have a patient by that name."

"Look again!"

" _Bucky_." Steve hand gripped Bucky's arm, pulling him away from the visitor's desk, leaving two dents in the side where his hands were clamped.

Steve could see his friend slowly losing his grip on control. It was a bit unsettling after the calm he experienced over in Europe. But that calm was also a little freakish. For a few weeks Steve was afraid Bucky might be settling back into a dangerous routine. A routine that involved killing to avoid his own suffering, as if ending other people's lives might stop him from feeling anything but rage. Rage wasn't a good coping mechanism for Bucky; he needed something else to keep him from losing his cool. Like right now, how he bounced his leg quickly, rhythmically, aggravating Natasha, who was trying to sleep on the armrest.

When they found out that Katie wasn't in the hospital, or, that she wasn't even a registered patient there, it set Bucky into a strange place. This could either be terrible, or wonderful news. Bucky couldn't stop the flow of cold dread in his veins. He knew that this wasn't right. Steve suggested that it meant that she was cured, home and sleeping like the rest of the world.

Suddenly the three of them were standing before a set of gnarly red clay steps. Bucky was at the top of the stairs, ringing E2 before Steve could even wake Natasha up to get her out of the cab.

No one answered the buzzer, so Bucky picked the lock. An alarm screamed above their heads, but was cut off when Natasha tore a wire from the wall with this look like she might kill Bucky if he made another sound. The walk up those creaking, old, stairs was longer than Bucky remembered. There were windows at every turn with a lovely view into the dark alley below.

E2 was still barely hanging on the door with cracked gold paint flaking off. Bucky knocked lightly first, tensing every muscle to keep from appearing as nervous as he felt. If Katie _was_ here, she was going to get a piece of his mind for ignoring his calls for the past few months. Kyle was going to get it way worse, though. He was supposed to be their point of contact. He failed miserably.

There were a few beats of silence before Bucky lost his patience and dropped to a knee, sticking two pins into the lock and turning them in sync to open the door.

Inside it was quiet as a morgue. And dark, _very_ dark. Even with the streetlight outside of the balcony window, it was too dark to see much. Steve and Natasha stayed back a little to let Bucky go inside and find what he needed to find. His steps and breaths were all of the sound in the dark apartment. Bucky walked through the living room, passed the back of the couch, running his metal hand over it as he went. First he went left down another hall to check Kyle's room. It was, of course, empty. His bed was there, and it appeared 'lived-in' but it was absent of its owner. The next door was Katie's. The door was ajar, all he had to do was push with his fingertips. The same furnishings were there, but Katie's bed was made. He knew better than to think _she_ would do that. All of her photos were hanging on the walls, so was her little stitching of "America the Beautiful". He was surprised to find Jade curled into a perfect circle on Katie's mismatched bed. Alone. She growled lowly until he glided closer. Holding his hand out, she began to recognize him. Her tail wagged in long, slow swings.

"Where's your mommy?" He asked as if talking to a baby, not really expecting an answer. He gently tugged one of the dog's black ears and sat on the edge of the bed as Jade nudged her way onto his lap. This room didn't smell like Katie and her melon scented shampoo.

Bucky didn't say anything when he passed his teammates in the kitchen, Jade's nails clacking against the wood in a slow trot as she followed. He quietly made his way out to the veranda and leaned against the railing over the side. Jade wasn't so calm toward the strangers. Her hackles rose and growled quietly.

"Shush, Jade." Bucky muttered quietly outside, only loud enough for Jade to hear. She lowered her head and trotted outside to sit next to Bucky. Someone _had_ to be living here. Otherwise, how else would Jade be alive? Bucky seemed to remember Katie once saying that she was going to leave Jade to him if she died. Bucky scoffed at the idea at the time. Now he might have to take the offer. Jade rubbed her cold, wet nose to his right hand.

"Hey! Buck, is this her? She's cute." Natasha called outside, holding a picture in a frame. Her sleeves were pulled over her hands to keep warm when she came outside and leaned up next to Bucky on the railing. She held the photo out in front of him.

The picture was of a striking girl with a very straight nose and small green eyes, crinkled with a bright smile. Blonde hair was long and curled under the flat, red brim of her cap. Katie looked young in her over-sized graduation gown. She held a tied diploma in one hand, the other hand held a man around the waist.

Natasha smirked and bumped Bucky with her shoulder. "Is that her brother? He's smokin'."

_No_. That was _not_ her brother. _That_ was Katie's ex husband: the head of Hydra's medical presence.

Bucky managed to keep it together for all of twenty seconds when Natasha brought the picture outside. He threw it across the street and watched the frame shatter in the street, lips pressed tightly together, back teeth clenched, all to keep from panicking. She couldn't be dead. Not yet, she was supposed to be here waiting. He was depending on it. Steve's arm reached around his back to pull him into a hug.

Natasha stood in the doorway with a smirk. "You know, lovebirds, you might want to come inside for a second." Steve shot her the nastiest look she ever received from him. She put up her hands defensively. "Jeez, relax. I just wanted to point out that there's someone trying to open the door."

Bucky froze, eyes wide, he turned to face the intruder. There was the thump of boots against the top stair before the clatter of keys as someone flipped through to find the right one. The door handle jingled a little before turning. There was a creak of unoiled hinges as the door opened. A pair of feet began making their way down the short entrance hallway. Jade perked up, Bucky's heart jumped, a small smirk pulling at the edge of his miserable lips.

"She _was_ cute." A very deep voice echoed through the apartment from the front hallway. Kyle appeared in ratty, grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt, drinking from a brown paper bag wrapped bottle as he eyed the new red haired girl unabashedly, one brow raised. Natasha grimaced and he shrugged then made his way to the back door. "Heard ya from the street, you might want to keep your voices down." He took another swig and pointed the bottom edge of the bottle in Bucky's direction. "Tried calling, damn phone wouldn't connect."

"It's been months." Steve started to say, but Kyle held up a finger.

"Telling you just would have fucked things up." Kyle leaned heavily against the doorway, drunkenly. "Kate's dead."

"Oh man." Natasha breathed quietly, only, in this silence, it was all anyone could hear. She covered her lips with her fingertips, looking to Steve for help. He would know that to say, he always did. A disbelieving "No" could be heard, whispered, like a cry for help. Bucky's eyes were dull, staring behind Kyle, unable to look at him. All of the anger flooded from him, replaced with nothingness. Natasha eyed him nervously, a hand sliding over the gun tucked into her sweatshirt's front pocket. Steve waved a hand at her urgently. A gun would only make this already mentally unstable super soldier lose it.

Steve felt his own pang of sadness at his friend's loss as he waited for Bucky's _real_ reaction. Bucky had a few unhealthy ways of dealing with stress. His most infamous was burying it all, laughing and joking rather than dealing with it. It was what he did when Steve's parents died and it was what he did to cover the guilt he felt about being the Winter Soldier. All of Bucky's tremendous progress toward getting better was going to falter, Steve knew. He was doing so well. There were no more nightmares, no more switching between personalities. Katie was the reason the former amnesiac came to Steve instead of hunting Hydra on his own. He was indebted to her for that.

Kyle closed the large gap between them. "She passed peacefully under anesthesia two months back. Sorry."

The way Bucky ceased to move made everyone in the room very nervous.

Two months. _Two months_?! Bucky couldn't move, he was afraid he might choke the life out of Kyle. There was probably a funeral, a wake, a burial; things he should have attended. He should have been there! Kyle robbed him of those things. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have let him come back to the states for something like that, right?

No, Kyle was right. It would have just been another distraction. Another thing that Bucky couldn't change. It would have sent him flying into the abyss. He already knew he was on that knife's edge, one side was reality, the other was rage. Rage would drive him toward revenge, and revenge wouldn't bring her back to life. Jade whined and nudged at his hand, bringing him back to the situation at hand.

"I need a bottle of Jack." Bucky gave big fake smirk that only solidified the pain reflected in his eyes. Steve sighed lightly, knowing exactly where this was going. Natasha rolled her head back across her shoulders, still exhausted. Kyle edged away a little, afraid that the super soldier might kill him with a grin on his face.

After a few seconds to make sure Bucky wasn't going to crack, Kyle raised his own brown bottle to his lips and fell into one of the balcony chairs. "Check the freezer, I think there's a bottle of Goose."

...

Every time Bucky reached the bottom of one bottle of liquor, Kyle would just point to a cabinet behind them in the kitchen. Of course, it was located right next to the fridge where there was a picture of Katie holding Jade as a puppy. It was held up with a heart shaped magnet. And, each time Bucky saw it, he wanted to cry. Instead of falling apart like some untrained child, he opened the cabinet door, grabbed the fullest bottle of whatever he could find and downed it before his metabolism could catch up. Dealing with emotions like an adult.

Natasha and Steve just watched, horrified, as Bucky drank every bottle of liquor in the apartment. Which was: a bottle of vodka, a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of spiced rum, and two smaller bottles of Jaegermeister. The balcony smelled like a bar. Kyle found this strangely amusing as he shakily lit another cigarette to suck down. Bucky stared at the lit windows across the street, teeth grit hard together, the neck of some fruity spirit in his fist, lips pressed into a hard line. All was meant to keep his nostrils from flaring, eyes from fogging, and lips from twitching. He was an adult man, he would not cry.

"I can't get drunk enough." Bucky said with a jilted tone. Steve gave a lame smile at his friend. Natasha looked to the street and Kyle stared at the rim of his beer with a deep frown.

"I can't drink enough to make her go away." Bucky clarified to no one in particular, voice straining hard not to waiver.

Steve sighed, leaning back on the railing. Bucky didn't look sober, exactly. But he wasn't drunk enough to feel numb quite yet. There were varying degrees of Bucky's sobriety that Steve learned to identify over their incredibly long lifetime. There was the first level where he was just happy to be alive, joking and laughing about anything and everything. Then there was the buzzed level. That was when he would slow down and become mopey, _sappy_ , even. He would tell everyone in the room that he loved them and that they were the best thing that ever happened to him, even if they only met that night. The last level was his fighting level, a level he couldn't reach anymore.

Right now he was stuck between the first and second, so he was just laughing about his own infernal suffering, trying his hardest not to crumple under the weight.

Natasha was perfectly happy to secretly poke at Kyle, she was still mission ready. Even when the world was being brought down by an alien, Natasha always seemed to keep her mind on target. If she was given an order, you could always count on her to follow it. That wasn't always the same for Steve or Bucky.

Kyle's red eyes told one story, but Natasha was reading something totally different. The tall, bald man did a good job of feigning his loss, but there was one person he could not fool. Bucky's girlfriend was _not_ dead. Hell, she was probably somewhere drinking martinis the way this guy spoke about her. Natasha was not going to be the one to say something about it. Not yet, at least. She needed to know the whole story before letting that cat out of the bag.

"...and then she married that asshole."

"Forscythe?"

"Yeah, he's a twat. If he died tomorrow, I'd dance at his funeral." Kyle smirked at Natasha, gaining curious glances from Bucky and Steve.

Steve finally jumped in, "Why do you hate the guy so much? She thought you liked him."

"There's a lot of shit she doesn't know." He coughed, " _Didn_ 't. That she _didn_ 't know." Kyle finished a rum and coke in one deep swig. "Where you guys off to next?"

"We'll be in the area for a while." Natasha cut Steve off before he could do something stupid, like tell him where they were really going.

"You guys can stay here as long as you need, by the way. Mi casa es su casa." The Hydra operative started to say, but then changed the topic. "I hear Madrid is gorgeous this time of year, Kate always wanted to go there..."

...

'Breakthrough technology saves hundreds so far'

It was the eye catching front-page news. The large grey scale photo below the headline looks terribly similar to a certain radiology ward Bucky visited an unforgivably small number of times. There were a few people in the background; one was Katie's doctor with a big grin as he injected a patient with this life saving medication. Developed just a little too late to save someone Bucky loved. The pain and disorientation wasn't fading the way everyone said it would.

People, friends, all told him that mourning is just a phase and that he would feel better one day. It was looking more and more like they were all lying. Everything had some kind of correlation with her memory. He couldn't pass a green field without remembering how much Katie loved the smell of cut grass, or, the time they went to pick strawberries and argued over who Jade loved more. That debilitating disease erased her vibrant light.

He knew that nothing could have been done for her, but that didn't make him blame everyone any less. He blamed the doctors at first, but Steve was the first to explain that chemotherapy wasn't an exact science, neither was anesthesia or heart surgery. Then, once that optioned proved warrantless, he blamed her family. Why couldn't they put her on that drug trial any sooner? Would it have changed anything? Even if they were all pure evil, that stupid drug was successful. Bucky couldn't help but think it could have saved her.

But, in the end, all of the blame fell on Peter Forscythe. Bucky blamed him for making Katie give up on her own life. He made her hate herself to the point that she stopped trying to live. Bucky was the one to pick up the pieces and get her back to a point where she could die with dignity, but that wasn't good enough. She was supposed to be here when he came back, she was the glue holding him together. It grew a little weaker every day. He was still waiting for that big explosion, the one day that he would wake up and become totally inconsolable. But he couldn't, because there was no closure. Kyle didn't even tell him where to find her grave. There were times he could feel himself slipping. He would calculate the cold ways he could kill Forscythe. It was the Winter Soldier laying in wait, deep in the back of his mind. Not only did that bastard steal years from Bucky's own life, he stole Katie's as well. Forscythe took everything from Bucky and he knew what had to be done.

Steve was reading the paper and Natasha was in her hotel room on 104th _not_ sleeping with her lover, Clint. She tried to be so sneaky, but Bucky wasn't as unobservant as Steve. The pit of his stomach twisted when he thought about them together. They were so ridiculous, fighting all of the time. Bickering like an old married couple. And then, there was that look. It was always brief and hidden, like a secret kept between them. A quiet understanding that they belonged to each other, entirely. It reminded him of the way he was with-

**_No_**. No more of that. He found out Katie passed away two weeks ago. She died almost three months back. It was time to stop dwelling on something that could never be fixed. Sometimes, looking back, it was almost better to have his mind wiped.

* * *

Caught somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. It was like swimming in the changing tide, taken down by rolling waves over and over again. The only reality was settled between the dark ocean floor and bright white sky. Reality was sea foam, just between breathing and drowning.

Life in the light was too much. It was bright and intense. It immersed Katie in a world of travel and pure health with her big brother. They saw Shanghai, and Rome, and Athens. Katie threw a coin over her shoulder at the Trevi Fountain. Supposedly it meant good luck. Luck was a tough commodity to come by, especially so when one defeats terminal diagnoses.

It was only when Katie slept that anything felt real. It was then that she would be haunted by violent nightmares. In these terrors, she was the star.

Just last night, she dreamed about killing about twelve people. With her bare hands, she gouged out a man's eye to use it as a biometric print for a door's lock. Once through the door she killed four more people, gunning them down like vermin. She wasn't alone; she was speaking with a team of three who followed her expressed orders, cutting off the fingertips of the fallen.

Those nightmares tainted the light of her perfect days. They grayed and hazed her delightful travels. Kyle reassured her that they were a side effect from the chemicals that saved her life.

But... that damned sea foam. That area right between the light and dark, wedged just before sleep, yet, after wakefulness. It was that delicate twilight that gave her true clarity. The realization that she wasn't alone in her head. Someone else resided there with her, waiting just below the still, glassy surface of consciousness. That person orchestrated these nightmares. Katie tried to reason with this entity, telling her that she didn't belong in her head. But the entity never answered. She _never_ answered. Pompous bitch.

That is, unless it was to speak with the other voices. The other voices weren't the same as the deranged murderer. They were the ones telling her what to do, when to do them, and how. They were brutally specific.

One time, Katie woke during a nightmare. It was only for a split second, but it was long enough to know for sure.

She was dead. This was Hell. That had to be what was happening. If not, it meant she was a psychopath who needed to be heavily medicated immediately.

When she woke, there was no heartbeat in her chest. It wasn't something she noticed at first, but as she walked up the Spanish Steps, she realized there was something missing. A rhythm was gone; the dancing pulse in her chest had ceased. She wasn't sure _when_ it happened. It's not something that one thinks about all of the time. When she asked Kyle, he just laughed nervously, giving some bogus reason.

Katie wasn't sure how long she would have to remain in this strange purgatory, but she hoped it wouldn't be long.

She missed Bucky. That was another hint that told her she was really just dead and that she was chilling in Hell. She called, and called, but he never answered. Kyle even took her to Bucky's apartment in DC. Judging by the condition of the place, they were living there, or, hadn't been away for long.

Did he forget about her? Was it the amnesia?

More likely, it was his decision. Katie was the one who pushed him to get help; it was natural that he would want to heal with someone more stable by his side. What right did Katie have to be upset? Who was she? A sick girl who lied to his face and repeatedly toyed with his emotions? He had to know he deserved better. Katie saw it coming; she knew he couldn't sustain what they had. That burning, passionate thing burned out before it could even begin. And that was Katie's fault.

Their current stop was Spain, Madrid, specifically. On the road, Kyle was extremely watchful. He didn't let her out of his sight and set a very strict schedule that typically had her sleeping by ten. Here, in Spain, the sun went down early, so she would end up asleep by eight. One night in January, Katie found herself curious about the bright city.

"I'm gonna go to the bar, want to come?" She asked, slipping a scarf around her neck and a skinny black band over her short brown hair to push it back. It wasn't growing in very evenly so Katie trimmed it just a little every day to keep it the same length all around. The top was the longest. She liked to sweep it foreword most days. She pulled off the tomboy look pretty well. Much of the weight she lost during chemo had returned, though the process was slow going.

From the bed next to hers, Kyle looked from his book with a sarcastically raised brow. "You're _not_ going out."

Katie rolled her eyes, throwing a little mascara on her lashes. She had eyebrows now; it was the eyelashes that gave her issues. They grew in bleach blonde and then fell out. It was a vicious cycle. Wearing just a touch of mascara made her look less like an alien and more like a person with both eyebrows and eyelashes. Even if she only had four or five lashes on either eye.

"I'm not kidding Kate. You can't go out alone here, it's too dangerous."

"Then come with, loser." She smiled at his tired expression. A simple new plan was born instantly. She flopped down onto her bed, channel changer in hand. "Fine. I'll stay in on the condition that we watch a serious Disney marathon. You pick first."

It only took half way through Mulan for Kyle to start snoring. Katie picked up her boots and walked across the cold tile floor in socks as not to make a sound. She closed the door silently behind her and made sure it was locked. Then she zipped up those boots and got running. The bar she wanted to visit was only a block away. She felt eyes watching the back of her head from the moment she stepped out of the front lobby.

That, of course, was ridiculous.

The smoky, hazy bar atmosphere was exactly what she needed. She hated going to bars alone, but she hadn't made a new friend in months and it was getting a little hard to spend every waking moment with her dopey, protective brother. A high top with smooth, but gnarled, wood was available right next to the bar. There was Russian hockey on the screen, which reminded her to check the Devils-Blackhawks game. Her face scrunched up. Damn, the Devs were losing. Out of habit, she always checked the Rangers. Wherever Bucky was, surely he couldn't keep updated on sports. She wondered if they could ever reconcile. Even if they were just friends, she couldn't imagine losing him form her life forever. She missed the laughing. It had been such a long time since she last laughed so hard that she cried. Even if he found someone new, all she wanted was his happiness. If he found that in another woman, then so be it.

Katie waltzed over to the bar and ordered in some of the few Spanish words she knew. "Una cervesa, Red Stripe, por favor?" Realizing this, the bartender held up four fingers to tell her the price. She reached around the guy seated at the bar and gave the man five euro with a smile. He smiled back and put the money into an old fashioned register.

She sat alone watching hockey on her phone, checking the TV on the wall from time to time to keep some peripheral knowledge of what was happening in the KHL. The games ended, and Katie finished her second beer. With a sigh, she waved at the bartender and headed back to her room. It was freezing cold outside; she had her head wrapped up in a scarf to keep her ears from falling off with frostbite.

Just as she got settled into bed, her eyes drifted closed. Sleep was a dangerous subject for Katie. She hated being asleep, but she also hated being awake.

A group six of armed guards suddenly burst through the door, lining it on either side, guns at rest against their shoulders. Katie scrambled and reached for her taser in the bedside table. Kyle didn't look nearly as pissed off as he should have as he stood slowly. In fact, he looked terrified. Katie glared up at him.

A man in a full-length, black leather over coat strode through. Some red insignia was emblazoned on his shoulder. He strode through as if entering his own personal concert hall. The man smiled at Kyle, whose own six-foot height shrunk away fearfully. Kyle couldn't even look the man in the eyes. The man appeared pleased with the resulting fear his presence exuded. A frown tugged at the corners of his thin, tight lips when he looked over the brown haired girl hair on the bed.

Green met cornflower blue eyes defiantly. After all this time being held down, she was not about to be scared into submission by some asshole.

There was the vague cracking sound of leather gloves tightening into fists. The man's posture was tight; he snapped his head to the right to stare Kyle down. "What is _she_ doing here."

Kyle fumbled for his words, explaining with his hands, an anxious habit. "She was dying, I just thought-"

" _That_ was your _first_ mistake, Estrada. You were never _told_ to think for yourself."

Kyle let his eyes fall away to look at his little sister. If looks could kill, her narrowed glare would have dropped his commander right then and there.

"Who the Hell do you think you are?" Katie asked, voice growing louder as she spoke. The man turned his eyes on her before following with his head to give his full attention. He took two strides before he was at the foot of her bed where she could get a better look at him.

He was pale with freckles dotting every visible surface of his skin. She was surprised not to have recognized him from those bright blue eyes alone. One upon a time, those eyes were all she could think about. Especially when she stood up on that alter and vowed to love him for all eternity.

She wanted to throw up.

Pete Forscythe smiled as he watched recognition change the geography of her face. It started in her lips as they trembled and fell open, just enough that she looked utterly helpless. Then came the tightness in her eyes, the muscles around them relaxed until her whole face was slack. But, the most satisfying were her eyes. Once so full of fire and brimstone, they automatically dulled into fear and trepidation. It was an expression he trained into her, whether she knew it or not.

What was better in life than to have a woman so completely your own? It was terrible to find her here. It was exactly the opposite of what he intended. He reached a hand out and watched her throat tighten as she swallowed her fear. "Come, there are a few thing that need clarification between us."

Something snapped then. Katie jumped from the bed. She flattened against the wall, sidling toward the window. Nostrils flaring, doing her best not to pass out from an anxiety attack, Katie spat, "There's nothing to talk about."

The light haired man smiled gently. "I won't let anything happen to you. There are plenty of people who would like to see creatures like you dead. But I'm not one of them." The muscles around her lips tightened as she narrowed her eyes again, confused and furious. Pete didn't realize how much her brother hid from her. He _knew_ he hated Kyle for a reason.

"Ah, no one told you." His eyes jumped to Kyle as he slid toward Katie like a panther to his prey. "Pity." He smiled down at the dark haired girl as she breathed more quickly than a frightened rabbit. A black-gloved fingertip touched the side of her face. She jerked away, flattening against the wall. Pete sighed and rocked back to give some space. "The only reason you're alive is to serve a higher purpose. There are hundreds of others like you, waiting for the next command, the next order. But you wouldn't know anything about _that_ , would you?"

Her pupils dilated. _Yes._ Forscythe knew she wasn't completely brainless. Katie must have figured some of it out on her own. He was proud. He lowered his voice so no one in the room could hear beside the woman before him.

"Katie, love. I've heard some unpleasant things that I'd prefer to discuss in private." He paused and ran the back of his index finger down the curve of her cheekbone as she pressed away, closing her eyes. Then, his voice faltered. Those hard sapphire eyes softened into the bright blue of a clear blue sky. He almost looked vulnerable. "Please, Kate. Come with me, I just want to help." 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you see any spelling or grammar errors so I can fix them. Thanks for reading!


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